


Ipheion uniflorum

by brigitttt



Series: Ipheion uniflorum [1]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Academia, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Museum, Descriptions of Animal Specimen Preparation (Non-Explicit), Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Past Child Sexual Abuse, M/M, Mild Blood, Mild Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, POV Laurent (Captive Prince), Panic Attacks, Plants, Sharing a Bed, Taxidermy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-14 21:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 40,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16920789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brigitttt/pseuds/brigitttt
Summary: Laurent is Botany Collections Manager at the Delpha Provincial Museum of Natural History. Damen is hired to the prep lab after finishing his master's degree. A slow fic about getting together while working at a museum, and dealing with the past while looking for the future, with a lot of plant references.





	1. Convallaria majalis

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty much my first fic ever, let alone for captive prince. I've worked in the bird and mammal collections at a provincial museum, so a lot of these work-specific scenarios were based off of real experiences, or real stories my boss told me. I also put a reasonable amount of effort into making sure that various species were at least Eurasian, if not from specifically France or Greece, and also each title is a plant species which may or may not have some nice thematic meanings. All this to say, feel free to take a break to look things up, because I know I had to! Also, let me know if something needs to be tagged, my mind went blank when I went to post this but I think I got the important bits.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and please leave a comment or a kudos if you like. I love you

The Delpha Provincial Museum of Natural History, in the old district of Marlas, is relatively quaint, when compared to the Royal Museum of Ios or the Muséum National in Arles, but it still draws a big crowd. Tourists drawn to the old Marlas ruins and the whale watching tours in the harbour always make a stop there. They can see the minutely detailed woodland creature displays, the big whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling in the great hall, and the intricately woven Delfeur tapestries that cover several square-metres of wall space. In recent years there have been multitudes of finds procured from provincially-funded archaeological excavations that ended up at the DPMNH. Schools from the surrounding provinces, even from Arran and Alier, in Vere, send scores of children to this museum and its exhibits to write reports and page-long essays on. The children of Marlas grew up with the same old “Our Changing Globe!” displays and cave bear skeleton reconstruction as their parents did. There are visiting exhibits, of course, on loan from various other provincial museums in Patras, and Vask, occasionally. The museum in Marlas is dated, but its executives and board of directors always strive to keep it modern enough; there were sarcophagi on display here just last spring, and mummified mammoth remains from Kempt the winter before. The DPMNH has even been a stop for the tour of wildlife photographer of the year exhibits for the past four years. 

Despite its continued popularity and it’s attempts at novelty, the museum remains relatively small, and relatively low-funded. The number of paid staff members has dwindled over the decades, and the reliance on volunteers is greater than ever. Laurent, as Botany Collections Manager with a mere bachelor's degree in biology, is not paid as much as a curator with a PhD, and looks after a fair number of volunteers, mostly pensioners, who come in once a week to chat with each other over plant specimens. There are a couple university students with less arthritic hands who come in when they don’t have too much homework. If Laurent had his way, however, he would be left alone with the aisles and aisles of cabinets filled with quiet, flat plants. He wouldn’t even mind if his government salary stayed the same. 

Fortunately, his work keeps him in the collections building, and behind-the-scenes tours never actually open the collection doors, instead remaining in the wide-windowed hallway lined on one side with wooden cases filled with education specimens, none with any usable data. Food is not allowed in the collections building, but Laurent quickly eats his small lunch in the staff lounge in the exhibits building an hour after the rest of the staff have had theirs, just to avoid the inane small talk. He brings along a book just in case there are latecomers who look like they’ll bother him. Unfortunately, most of the museum executives inexplicably reside in top-floor offices in the collections building, and most mornings Laurent will take the stairs to avoid uncomfortable situations in the elevator; his student volunteers have told him horror stories of elevator ascension accompanied by overenthusiastic execs who dearly wish to hear the whimsical activities of these young volunteers in the 10 seconds it takes to get to the botany collection floor. Laurent is glad he’s on a little more of an equal standing with the suits; he knows he couldn’t tolerate the patronising. No, the one occasion that consistently manages to irritate Laurent’s anti-social inclinations beyond belief are the monthly staff meetings. Every four weeks, he must endure bad coffee surrounded by the rest of the museum staff, and listen to whichever chief executive has taken it upon themselves to make big plans for the museum this month. These plans are usually made without notifying anyone else beforehand, and will inevitably fail under the scrutiny of the collections managers and curators who have to supply the material for it, but which will forge ahead regardless, until eventually limping into fruition for the public to consume at a more reasonable and affordable level of grandeur. 

This particular staff meeting, first thing on this brisk, late October morning, was slightly different. 

Many people use the lowly provincial museum as a stepping-stone in their careers, so the comings and goings of new staff members are frequent, and frankly quite boring. Laurent has been working here for going on seven years now, first as a student assistant and then as a full employee; the amount of attention he cares to give to people he does not wish to know, who rarely last for more than a year and a half, is reasonably small. There’s just no point. 

The newcomer this time is a man, large and of Akielon colouring, who sits near the middle of the big conference table, across and down a ways from Laurent’s corner seat. He’s dressed in simple jeans and a thin maroon sweater, and he has a neutral yet happy smile. He’s clearly been escorted to the room by a staff coordinator, still showing him the ropes. Laurent has a brief thought that a man of that size must be a new exhibit builder, someone used to heavy lifting and light thinking. He stops himself from imagining the power in the man’s arms, how the man carefully holds his broad shoulders, and Laurent hides anything that may have shown on his face by quietly clearing his throat, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. He considers his coffee intently instead of looking more. 

The meeting starts with the usual reports from executives, and then Vannes from the ethnology collections makes a brief speech about recent repatriation efforts. Laurent has brought a notepad and pen with him for appearances only, content with replacing the usual announcements with ponderings of the work he has to do today: finish teaching his newest volunteer the mounting process, email that visiting researcher back about how many ryegrass specimens they have available, assemble more data for that loan– 

“– to our newest addition, Damianos!” Laurent resumes his focus on the meeting as the cheery executive introduces the newcomer. He appraises the large Akielon again, as he starts to speak. The man has a wider smile now, and sits up straighter in his chair. Laurent’s eyes zero in on his dimple. 

“Please, call me Damen! I’ll be working in the prep lab, overseeing the bird and mammal specimens.” Ah, so he’s a butcher, not a builder, Laurent thinks. Just as well. “Come down any time to chat, I’d love to meet you, if you, uh, don’t mind the smell.” There’s polite laughter at his last comment. It’s very unlikely any of the executives here will deign to visit the ground floor and its deceased, noxious residents. Laurent himself has little inclination and no real reason to go looking at dead animals sitting in a freezer or being desiccated by beetles. 

“Thanks for such a warm welcome, guys,” Damianos finishes. The meeting moves on, and he clasps his large hands together on top of the table and relaxes back into the chair. His biceps strain his sweater sleeves once more. As the next topic begins, Laurent, attention still on him after his introduction, watches Damianos flick his eyes around the table, and their gazes meet for a second before Laurent drops his own to his blank notepad. When the staff meeting is wrapping up, Laurent looks back; Damianos is looking out the window at the rustling oak leaves.

#

The staff lounge, with couches, a kitchenette, and an old conference table, is usually empty when Laurent has his late lunch. Today he brought a slice of quiche, because he’d made one over the weekend and appreciates having leftovers that require little effort to make. Laurent, with an eager stomach, thinks of mushrooms and spinach and gooey raclette, and almost doesn’t notice that someone else is in the room as he makes to set his bag on the table. He doesn’t jump when he sees the new staff member out of the corner of his eye, sitting on one end of a couch and holding the museum-produced monthly magazine. 

“Hi,” says Damianos. Even with his back turned to him as he digs the quiche container out of his bag, Laurent can hear the eagerness of the greeting, the friendly smile awaiting him. Laurent clutches his quiche in his hands and turns fully around. 

“I’m Damen. You were at the meeting this morning, right?” He sets the magazine in his lap. Laurent’s eyes narrow.

“Yes, staff members usually attend staff meetings,” Laurent says with a regretful amount of bite. He doesn’t really need to be actively antagonistic. “Nice to meet you,” he amends, and then walks to the microwave.

“Ha, yeah, I guess you’re right. I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name?” Laurent had hoped that the pleasantries were over, that he could heat up his lunch in peace. He waits until the chime and takes his quiche over to his seat, surprised to find Damianos has extricated himself from the couch and is now sitting across the table from Laurent’s bag. 

“It’s Laurent. I work in botany.” He gets a fork from his bag and with as much respect as he can muster, fills his mouth with quiche, to hopefully avoid any further conversational attempts. 

“Oh, cool, plants are awesome,” says Damianos; he leans his forearms on the table, and his chest stretches the material of his sweater. Laurent looks up with his mouth full and sees his eyes practically sparkling with amity. Why is this guy so keen? Laurent’s lack of response to the statement should signal his indisposition to conversation, but the man perseveres on a different tack. “Hey, you’re Veretian, right?” 

Laurent’s almost done his quiche. If he answers and then takes another couple quick bites, he’ll be done and able to excuse himself. “Yes, from Arles. However did you notice,” he says with no small amount of sarcasm; he’s too pale to be from anywhere else. 

“It was just, well, your accent.” Damianos ducks his head so he’s looking up through his long eyelashes, and lifts a hand up to rub the back of his neck. He smiles at Laurent, who takes his last, cheesy bite, the bite that will get him away from this friendly, dimpled man with big arms and big hands that Laurent’s looking at again, despite his better judgement. Then Damianos says, “your Akielon’s actually pretty good for not being from around here!”

Although located in an Akielon province, the larger cities in Delpha, including Marlas, have unofficially included the Veretian language in many aspects of city life, due to the proximity to the Veretian border. In fact, many rural areas of Delpha have long-established Veretian-speaking villages, leftover from the different times in history when Vere controlled the area. If Laurent entered a cafe in downtown Marlas and ordered a coffee in Veretian, many baristas would be able to understand him with perfect ease. The museum’s functional status within whichever Delphan ministry the Akielon government has decided to put it in this year doesn’t require its staff to speak solely in Akielon, and its permanent exhibit displays are already captioned in both languages. 

So, despite all of these very good reasons to favour his native tongue, Laurent tends to speak in Akielon at work. He had a thorough education in languages during his youth in Arles, and his undergraduate degree at University of Marlas combined with the several working years after graduation only solidified his aptitude in the language. To be told that his Akielon is “pretty good for a Veretian” is, well. It’s just insulting. 

Laurent had been chewing his last bite and packing his bag when Damianos had said this. His eyes widen and his head snaps up to look at the man, to look at the picked-up corner of his mouth and earnest brown eyes. Laurent swallows, and his mouth sets into a tight line, his eyes narrow into a glare with undue amounts of ferocity. He doesn’t want to entertain this anymore. He stands up abruptly, still building up irritation behind his eyes, and swings his bag around his shoulder. Damianos, for his part, has possibly realised his mischoice of words, and is quickly scooting his chair back from the table. 

Laurent has to get out of here. “I’m sure I leave plenty to be desired.” 

“Shit, I didn’t mean – wait!” Damianos calls after him, but Laurent is already leaving, rounding the doorway too sharply, so he knocks his elbow into it painfully. He knows he probably overreacted, that he should’ve done something like laugh, and brush it off. He could do that right now, and save face, but Damianos would probably know it was a lie, now that he’s seen what Laurent is like. The pain from his elbow radiates into his forearm. He forgot his fork on the table in the lounge, a sacrifice in his escape. He makes powerful strides across the back of the lobby to the connecting passage to the collections building, and once the cooler air in the stairwell hits him he finally relaxes his shoulders. Outside the doors to the botany collection, he takes a deep, slow breath, wipes a hand across his cheek, and then down the buttons on his shirt, and fits the key on his lanyard into the lock. 

#

There is one day a week where Laurent only has one volunteer, and it’s always a toss up whether Nicaise actually does any work on that day. The student volunteer has been working two days a week for Laurent for nearly two years now, so he’s used to the boy’s particular brand of acerbic comments and rude conversation, but Laurent has been exhausted this whole week, ever since the staff meeting on Monday. The big loan agreement he’s been processing isn’t due for another month yet but it’s the largest thing he’s had to deal with in a while, so it’s occupying an unruly amount of his energy, which he usually metes out for volunteer interactions. That being said, Nicaise is probably the least irritating of the botany collections’ current volunteers, but when he’s sitting in the spare chair in Laurent’s office and asking him unnecessarily pointed personal questions instead of cataloguing new specimens, he can certainly grate on his patience. Laurent should get rid of that chair.

“When was the last time you hooked up with someone?” Nicaise is spinning the office chair back and forth in little half-circles, his hands tucked under his thighs, leaning forward. Laurent rolls his eyes and ignores him, pressing the tab button on his keyboard with force.

“Is there anyone at the museum you’ve been embarrassingly attracted to before? I think the guy who handles estate donations can sometimes be kinda hot. Like in a certain light. Don’t you think?” Nicaise shimmies his shoulders and raises his eyebrows, unintentionally rolling the chair closer. Laurent snorts, and can’t help but smirk at the thought. 

“Yes, I’m sure he could find something in his beard to satisfy every lover,” Laurent says and Nicaise lets out a sharp laugh. He takes out his phone and types out a text while Laurent scrolls through a list of accession numbers. It’s raining outside, and looks like it won’t let up; Laurent empathises with the ash tree outside his window as it’s pelted with raindrops, its last leaves weathering the onslaught. He stares back at the document on his computer with tired boredom; this bureaucracy is not the nicest part of managing a collection.

“Hey, have you met the new prep lab guy? And all his stupid muscles?” Nicaise is still looking down at his phone when Laurent dares a glance over at him. “He’s got kind of a caveman, shot put look going on, or maybe rugby, with those thighs,” says Nicaise. Laurent had turned back to his computer screen before Nicaise had a chance to see the traitorous blush creeping onto his cheeks. Of course the man’s physique was the first thing Laurent had noticed, and even after the disastrous lunch encounter, Laurent had had to admit that Damianos hadn’t been trying to be rude.

“Of course we’ve met, at the staff meeting,” Laurent says noncommittally. Nicaise may not be the worst person but Laurent doesn’t want to give him too much ammunition; Nicaise is too sharp to be spoken to carelessly. 

“Did you know he has a master’s from Ios?” Nicaise sneers. “In zoology or some shit.”

Laurent did not know this. It makes sense, though; you can’t be hired by a museum and not be smart in some way. He’s about to tell this to Nicaise when the boy starts to grin with a mischievous look in his eye. “How much do you bet that his dick’s as big as the rest of him?” 

“I know you don’t get paid, Nicaise, but feel free to get to work on cataloguing those new specimens before I decide the cabinets need disinfecting again.” Laurent’s tone is unyielding. His fingers have frozen on his mouse and keyboard and he stares coldly at his computer screen, refusing to move his gaze from the spreadsheet he has up. His lips are pressed together very tightly. Nicaise huffs and stands up so quickly the office chair makes a clacking sound as the seat bounces. Once he’s out the door, Laurent lets out a slow, shaky breath through his nose, and he looks out the window at the ash tree again. His thoughts are as frozen as his hands, unable to move past Nicaise’s stupid, flippant comment. There’s a bird in the branches now, a song thrush, and Laurent tries to focus on hearing it through the glass, past the rain that’s gradually letting up. The thrush flits down to the ground and then back up into the middle branches, letting out chirps and trills every so often. When it finally flies away, Laurent releases his grip on the computer mouse and turns in his chair to look around the room. 

His office is in a state of organized chaos, only achieved through years of accumulated mess inherited by each collections manager. It hasn’t changed much since Laurent was an assistant to the former manager, an elderly man named Arnoul, and he’s quite sure that it was much the same even before Arnoul had the office. There’s an array of older, wooden cabinets with awkwardly opening glass-inset doors along one wall, that hold the smaller books and local plant guides. Wide, horizontal filing cabinets hold many pieces of specimen-related educational material, and white metal shelves on the next wall hold the most intimidating assortment of loose documents, catalogue books, accession ledgers, botany textbooks, and worn, plastic ring binders detailing most of the history of the collection, and its many previous attempts at organization methods. Laurent’s desk sits perpendicular to the windows, and is usually piled with notepads, catalogue printouts, and whichever forms and pink sheets are relevant to the specimens he’s looking into on that day. There’s a cart in the corner by the second, unmanned desk, that holds a stack of pressed specimens and one of the lab’s four expensive dissecting microscopes. Laurent had suggested getting the microscopes back when he was an assistant to Arnoul; he’d been proud of the effort he put in to getting the nice pieces of equipment, petitioning the museum execs for letting them have the funds. It’s been a while since Laurent has fought for something like that, with the kind of youthful passion and resolve that reminds him so much of – 

Laurent is jolted out of his thoughts by the buzz of his phone. It’s a text from Nicaise. He drags his finger to read it on the lock screen: big boy’s comin ur way dont choke!!

He only has a couple seconds to decipher what it means before there’s a knock on the door frame. One of the more recent museum execs is cautiously moving into the room – Laurent vaguely remembers her name is Mariam, she’s Patran – and behind her is the hulking form of Damianos. He has the decency to have a somewhat sheepish look; serves him right after their last encounter. 

“Hi Laurent, don’t mean to bother you, just showing Damen around the other parts of the collections building today!” The executive says with enthusiasm. She turns to Damianos and says, “Laurent manages the botany collections, or herbarium, I guess. He’s been with us for . . .” She squints at Laurent. “How long is it now?”

“Seven years, if you count my apprenticeship,” Laurent supplies, and he makes a split-second decision. He stands up. “If you want I could show you some specimens?” 

The executive’s smile wilts a little, and she half turns to Damianos. “I’m not sure we have the time,” she hedges, at the same moment Damianos’ eyes widen and he says “Yeah, I’d love that.”

Laurent steps around from the back of his desk and moves past to lead them back into the collections room. The metal cabinet cases that hold the specimen sheets share the room with the desktop computers and the other three dissecting microscopes. Without looking behind to make sure they’re following, Laurent walks down one of the aisles and opens a door, swinging it wide so that Damianos and the executive have room to stand and look inside. Two columns of thirteen rows of pigeonholes hold the stacked folders containing the pressed specimens. Laurent scans the names written on the folder labels and pulls one out from a pigeonhole midway down. He opens the folder with one hand to show the top sheet, and then lifts one side of the cardboard sheet to reveal the mounted specimen under a layer of plastic. 

“ _Lavandula heterophylla_ , or sweet lavender,” says Laurent in a quiet voice, affecting a reverential tone that only arises when he’s in amongst his collection. “This one is an isotype, which is like a holotype, but a duplicate, taken from the same plant that the holotype is from.” He angles his arms so that they can see it more easily. 

Damianos lifts a hand as if to touch, and then thinks better of it, holding his own chin instead. “How do you mount it? It’s not pinned or anything.”

“It’s glued on. First it’s dried and flattened in a press, then one side is dipped in glue, and it’s put on the stiff paper, covered with more paper, and pressed again. We add the label on too, of course, and then the plastic covering,” he says. He closes the cardboard and the folder and puts it back in the pigeonhole. “We also have bulkier specimens in boxes, and a couple things in formaldehyde or ethanol. But most of it is like this.” Laurent closes the cabinet door and places a hand on it. When he looks over at Damianos, he sees a look of quiet fascination, a small smile. The sleeves on his sweater today are rolled up, showing dark-haired forearms and the soft skin that leads up to the inside of his elbows.

The executive coos. “That’s amazing, thank you so much, Laurent! Okay, Damen,” and she takes him by the tricep to lead him down the cabinet aisle and toward the exit. Laurent checks that the cabinet door is securely closed, and heads down the opposite end of the aisle. Nicaise is sitting in front of the computer but it’s clear he’s been paying more attention to Laurent and their visitors. 

“So it’s like that, huh?” he says cheekily as Laurent passes. 

Laurent doesn’t deign to answer, and just says “do your work,” in as icy a tone as he can manage. Nicaise laughs and swirls around in the chair. 

#

The following week, Laurent comes in to work later in the morning than usual to find a wide, chest-high cabinet on wheels parked directly in front of the doors to the herbarium. It’s a dark grey colour and definitely not the same kind of cabinet unit that he uses. The door handles are a little wonky; this cabinet must be old and well-used. Laurent tries to shift it, moving around to the side and pressing his hands and chest to the metal, and it does move a couple inches, but there’s not enough space to let him open the botany collection door. He steps back and considers it for a second, his hand coming up onto his hip. 

When he opens the cabinet doors, he notices two things. First, there are inch-wide sliding shelves stacked up inside with a couple inches space in between them, fuzzy-looking specimens peeking through the gaps. Second, there is a very strong smell. Laurent’s hand flies up to cover his face immediately, and he reels back a bit. It’s an odour that’s difficult to describe, with some parts chemical, some parts distinctly and pungently biological, and he’s completely unused to it. Laurent recovers but doesn’t take his hand away from covering his nose, and reaches delicately around the lip of one of the shelves to pull it out. He’s greeted by several rows of individual, disembodied badger heads. They’re prepared, and stuffed with cotton, which sticks out of the holes where the eyes used to be, and their noses are hard and shiny, fur smooth and neat. There’s paperwork there underneath too, and labels on strings attached to each specimen. Laurent closes the shelf, and opens the one below it, to find a couple more badger heads, as well as some squirrels. They’re laid out in a flat line on their stomachs, one front paw reaching forward, and one back paw stretched back, tail fluffy but extending straight out behind the body, a wooden stick attached underneath. 

When Laurent closes the cabinet doors, he takes a moment to consider his options. It’s a Friday, a day which he usually relishes because none of his volunteers come in. The presence of this misplaced cabinet, however, makes him wish he had someone to either help him move it out of the way, or ask to return it to the mammal collections floor for him. It would definitely take two people to get it into the elevator. The other option is to leave it here and go in to his office through the back door, but he would still have to deal with it on Monday morning, when his volunteers come in, and it’s probably not the best idea to leave the cabinet here over the weekend. The security guards still have to access the herbarium to do their night checks, and they would only complain to Laurent, regardless of who the cabinet actually belongs to. 

Now that he thinks of it, he could always go to the source of the problem; these newly prepared specimens could only be sent up from one place, and maybe Laurent can guilt someone from the prep lab into moving it for him. He’s stronger than his current outfit makes him appear; a flowing white collared shirt and navy slacks hide his muscles, and he can use his good looks to his advantage. He takes his bag off his shoulder and leaves it propped by the wall near the door. Laurent tucks his hair behind his ears and calls the elevator.

All the main doors in the collections building can be opened by the same key, one that all staff members have, and volunteers have to sign out copies of at security each day. Laurent unlocks the ground floor prep lab door and steps inside with confidence, noticing that the smell in here is much like that inside the cabinet, but less concentrated, and slightly colder, with more hints of blood and iron. One side of the anteroom has filing cabinets and two desks perpendicular to each other, covered in haphazard file folders and forms. On the other side is the big door for the walk-in freezer, a white board attached to the wall beside detailing particular contents. Through the second doorway is the main lab space. There are four people in here; a young Akielon man is carrying a large, heavy lidded tub out of another room with another man following closely behind, a woman stands in front of the fume hood, her back to the door, and finally, Damianos is sitting on a stool at a large, high table, focus narrowed intensely at a big lump of feathers on a block in front of him.

Laurent stalks over to him, assembling his features into one of irritation awaiting anger at the hint of a proper direction to strike. He assesses the table surface quickly before slapping his hand down, and Damianos’ shoulders jump before he turns surprised eyes toward Laurent, who misjudged his momentum and is now standing very close to Damianos’ side. Laurent takes a small step back. 

Damianos is about to recover and greet him before Laurent cuts him off. “Which one of you giant idiots put a cabinet full of badger heads in front of my collection doors?” Laurent flicks his gaze to different corners of the room past Damianos’ head while he says this, before landing back on the startled brown eyes before him. To his annoyance, Damianos just looks more confused.

“Uh, I’m not sure. It could have been a volunteer? I’ve been dealing with this all morning,” he gestures to the bird skin in front of him, “so I haven’t really been paying attention. Sorry,” he says. Laurent narrows his eyes, and looks at the bird as well. Its feathers are a fluffy mottled brown, and its beak is open at an unnatural angle. One of its wings is sitting, spread open but detached from the rest of the body, a couple inches away. 

Laurent can feel Damianos staring at him. “What are you doing?” he asks, and then looks back at Damianos, who smiles.

“I’m getting her ready to dry, but she’s been very obstinate about where her feathers are laying.” Damianos smooths a big hand down her front, and the feathers spring back up in different directions. “I have to finish her pretty soon though, or else the feather tracts will dry in place, and she won’t look very nice.”

Laurent looks at the bird again. It’s got cotton sticking out of its eyes, just like the badgers. “What kind of bird is it?”

“She’s an eagle-owl, so she really deserves to look more beautiful than this. Oh, I gotta . . .” Damianos’ sentence drifts off as he grabs a spool of thread from the table and unwinds a length of it off, snipping it with a pair of small shears. He wiggles the head around a bit with his hands, still holding the thread, and Laurent doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s just standing there with all the irritation drained out of him, any irrational time pressure he’d felt before gone completely slack. He watches as Damianos closes the beak with his finger and thumb and leans over to blow the feathers around it back with a light breath. He wraps the thin thread around the base of the beak, and forms a loop that he carefully tightens so that the beak stays shut in place. Damianos ties it around once more before taking the shears again and snipping off the excess thread. His hands are so large that Laurent wouldn’t think that they’d be so careful and agile for this kind of work, but now seeing how naturally they move around the delicate, soft feathers of the owl, Laurent is struck silent. 

He doesn’t move when Damianos gets up from the stool, and then comes back with a rectangle of very thin, flexible ethafoam, and Laurent stares at his process of settling the owl more stably on its back, remaining wing folded up underneath, plucking gently at the feathers of its ear tufts with soft fingertips so that they straighten out. He takes a couple pins with long wooden handles and angles them on either side of the stuffed head so that they stick into the block underneath and the handles keep the head in place. Then Damianos softly places the piece of airy foam over top of the head, holding the bottom of it and slowly moving it down over the feathers of the torso, to make sure that it’s keeping the feathers gently weighted down and laying in the right direction. He takes more of the pins to help tuck the foam around the body, and then uses a couple smaller ones to straighten out the tail feathers. There’s only one leg still attached, toes and claws clutched together and looking strange and impotent. There’s a long wooden dowel sticking out of the end of the bird’s torso, like the squirrels that are still upstairs. 

The squirrels. The cabinet still needs to be moved. Damianos has finished arranging the single wing open with more pins, standing over the table now, slightly hunched with his shoulders carefully tensed. Laurent unthinkingly tucks his hair behind his ears again and clears his throat.

“The cabinet upstairs,” Laurent starts, but he’s feeling off-kilter for some reason, can’t get his thoughts in the right order and he’s not sure why. Luckily, Damianos must remember and straightens up, throwing a smile in Laurent’s direction. Laurent looks away and they wordlessly walk back out of the prep lab together. Once in the hall, calling the elevator, Laurent is able to take a breath of fresh air through his nose, although he hadn’t noticed how used to the smell he had become while in the lab.

They emerge from the elevator on the fifth floor, right in front of the herbarium doors and the cabinet. Laurent had come up with a plan on the way up.

“I think if I go in through the back door, and then come out this one behind the cabinet, I can help push it while you direct it towards the elevator,” says Laurent, gesturing to each object. Damianos hums in assent and Laurent goes into the stairwell. Because of the mezzanine floors the building was designed with, he has to first go down to the fourth floor in order to walk across to the stairwell on the other end of the building. 

He unlocks the back door to the collections and suddenly stops at the end row of cabinets, looking down the middle aisle to the main doors. The lights aren’t on; he doesn’t usually have them on on Fridays anyways, because he stays in his office for the most part, and he can navigate the collections just fine with the muted light that comes in from behind the angled blinds on the windows. In the dimness, he feels abnormally weighted down with his own personhood, made acutely aware of swirling, nebulous feelings in his chest, of his own hands as they hang by his sides. Keeping his eyes on the red light of the emergency exit sign above the main doors, he walks slowly down past the aisles of his collection, and the weight lifts, like the pressed plants he cares for are soaking it out of him.

Thankfully the collection doors open inward, or else the cabinet would pose a greater problem. Laurent wedges the door open with a block and Damianos, still on the other side of the cabinet, calls for the elevator. With no small amount of heft, they both maneuver the cabinet into the elevator, along with Laurent; Damianos is too big to fit alongside, so he’s taking the stairs up to meet the elevator outside the mammal collection. 

When they get there, they roll the cabinet around the corner and over to the doors, leaving room for Damianos to knock. It opens to reveal Jord, the mammal collections manager, and he appraises Laurent, Damianos, and the rolling cabinet between them. 

“I’m assuming these are my new skins?” he sighs. Damianos helps him roll the cabinet into the collections. From the doorway, Laurent can see the door to the fur vault, and moveable metal racks that hold deer and elk skulls and their attached antlers. He moves back into the hall when Damianos exits, and they walk back to the elevator doors. Laurent’s too tired right now to take the stairs.

“Thanks for the help, Damianos. I know you were innocent in all this.” At the sound of Laurent’s voice, he looks down at him with a blush on his cheeks, but a sincere smile.

“No, I’d do– it was really my pleasure,” says Damianos,. “Hey, I’m starving, do you wanna go have lunch right now? I can meet you over there?” Laurent briefly thinks about just going down to his floor, finally retrieving his bag, and just collapsing in his office, but he’s also kind of hungry, and this whole morning excursion with Damianos has actually been kind of nice. He nods.

“Sure. I’ll see you there.” Laurent says, and sees Damianos’ face light up. He leaves Laurent by the elevator doors to take the stairs down to the prep lab, probably two at a time, like the eager puppy he seems to always be impersonating. Laurent steps into the elevator when it opens, and hits the button for his floor, and when the doors close he absentmindedly rotates his wrist so the joint cracks, and he smiles at nothing in particular.

#

It’s a Wednesday when the fire alarm goes off at work. Laurent flinches, but doesn’t move otherwise, continuing to sew around the woody stem of the alder cutting. A couple of his elderly volunteers peek around a specimen cabinet. He addresses them before they can speak.

“Don’t worry, ladies, that’s the fire alarm for the other building. You can make your way out but you don’t have to rush.” He hears nearly every complaint they make about arthritic joints, and there’s really no need to evacuate this building with any amount of haste, especially if they’re forced to use the stairs. “Just make sure to close the cabinet doors, please.” He finishes tying the knot and then cuts the thread.

“Laurent, dear, aren’t you coming too?” He sighs internally. He’d really rather not lie to them.

“Of course, I’ll be out in a minute, I just have this specimen to finish up and I’ll be right down,” he says, and they finally leave. He hears the collection door shut a minute later. 

There is essentially no need to evacuate the collections building at all if there’s a fire in the exhibits building. Usually there’s no fire anyways, and someone’s just leaned on the trigger, or was smoking in the toilets. The general idea is that, despite the fire doors and the limited physical access between buildings, the staff in the collections building should make their way out to the assembly point to help assuage the fears of the public visitors, and to set a good example. They don’t need Laurent for that. Besides, he really does have to finish this mount, and if he has to do it while listening to a partially muted alarm bell, so be it.

The specimen he’s mounting is too heavy to be regularly glued to its sheet, and so must be sewn on. The leaves are already flattened and glued, and he’s punctured the paper at certain points on either side of the stem so he can just use a large blunt needle to sew. He’s got the sheet turned over and is taping the knots down ten minutes later, when Damianos walks hurriedly into the collections. 

“Laurent. What are you still doing in here,” says Damianos in a somewhat serious tone. They’ve shared lunches a couple times now, which Nicaise has managed to find out and tease him for. Laurent will never admit that he’s more than tolerant of Damianos now, and possibly might even enjoy his company. It has nothing to do with his nice hands, or adorable dimple.

He looks up from his work at Damianos’ slow approach to the table. “I know why you might be worried, Damianos, because you’re new, and this is your first fire alarm,” Damianos rolls his eyes, “but we’re perfectly safe. I don’t need to leave. Not even _you_ need to leave, now that you’re all the way up here.” He takes his hands from the mount and folds them on the desk. Damianos looks at him with amused concern.

“Laurent, won’t you get in trouble for not evacuating? They were already doing a head count and I volunteered to come see where you were.” Laurent gives him a pitying look at that. Damianos sighs dramatically and sits down on the chair in front of the computer, propping his elbows on the counter and putting his chin in his hands; apparently nothing the man does can be in half-measures. The position makes his arms look spectacularly muscular.

Laurent flips the specimen over and slides it towards Damianos. He looks it over with interest.

“ _Alnus glutinosa_ ,” he reads from the label. He frowns. “Something . . . sticky?”

“A common alder. The branches have resinous warts on them to make them sticky, and the buds and young leaves have a gum on them too.” Laurent hesitates, but continues. He can talk to Damianos without bothering him. “They’re a pioneer species, inhabiting vacant land and helping form new mixed forests. They have a symbiotic relationship with a particular bacteria, that essentially fertilises the soil around them, and the alder gives it photosynthetic carbon products in return.” He’s been tracing the mount with his eyes during his impromptu botany lesson, and when he dares to look to the side at Damianos he only finds wide open interest. Laurent gives a rueful smile. “It often dies out after creating a woodland because its seedlings don’t get enough light on the forest floor. But it gives so much to its surroundings while it’s alive.”

Damen smiles encouragingly back. “I think my grandma used to make alder bark tonics when I was a kid, and she’d collect the leaves and give bags of them to all the pregnant women in our neighbourhood. They must’ve thought she was crazy,” he says. Laurent could mention the recent research done on medicinal uses of alder products, but he gives Damianos a soft smile instead. He feels weird, suddenly, high up in his chest, near his throat, and looks away, back at the cabinet aisles behind them. 

The collections door opens and Damianos turns around too. The volunteer ladies have come back, and they’re chatting away as they go back to their chairs at the other end of the long counter under the windows. Laurent realizes the fire alarm has been turned off sometime while they were talking.

“I guess the fire wasn’t too dangerous after all,” Damianos says, giving a breathy laugh as he gets up to leave.

“I guess not,” says Laurent.

#

When Laurent wakes up on Sunday, the pale, autumn morning sun is coming through the top of his window where there is no curtain. When he blinks his eyes open, he can see how it illuminates his bedroom with golden tones, and he can hear birds chirping outside. It rained again last night, leaving puddles and washed out worms, and a palpable dampness in the air. 

Laurent rolls onto his side, the puff of the duvet bunching over his shoulder, and lets out a sigh. He can already feel what kind of day it’s going to be. He pulls his phone from its charger on the nightstand; he has an email from the curator in Ios he’s been corresponding with, received at 4:03am. Laurent wonders if she woke up very early or just never went to sleep. He closes the email without reading it, and opens the text he got from Nicaise around midnight. It’s a picture of his tremendously fluffy cat, lounging on its back atop an embroidered pillow, with the message “she demands attention!!!” followed by three crown emojis. Laurent tries to think of a reply but he doesn’t have the energy, so he puts his phone down on the mattress and closes his eyes. 

He might have the energy to make instant coffee. He definitely does not have enough for a shower, and even thinking about having to make lunch later is already filling his brain with discomfort and fatigue. He’s not even sure how long he’ll wait in his warm bed before going to the washroom. Laurent picks up his phone again.

He scrolls through social media hazily, not really bothering to focus on what he’s seeing, and eventually his thoughts wander back to the museum. He thinks about Nicaise, whose cat is pampered and bossy, and wonders if he should get a cat. He thinks about his collections, and because there aren’t that many, tries to distract himself from nothing by attempting to remember every wet specimen they have. He thinks about the dry plants too, and his own live plants here in his house, which reminds him that he should give them water. Another task to procrastinate on and then feel bad about. 

Eventually, he thinks about Damianos. They’ve had lunch together more often than not the past week, although it’s been at Laurent’s usual late time, so they’ve had the lounge to themselves. It’s usually quiet, but they’ve talked a little about easy things. Laurent has learned that Nicaise’s sport guesses were wrong, and that Damianos used to wrestle in high school and early undergrad. He’s learned that he did indeed get a master’s degree from University of Ios in zoology, that his thesis was something on pathologies of a kind of dove endemic to southern Akielos, in relation to their urbanizing environment. Laurent learned that Damianos found the dissection process so interesting that he spent more and more of his time in the museum there first just prepping birds, then learning how to prep nearly everything else. Damianos didn’t tell him this, but Laurent has a feeling that his move to Marlas is related to something that happened in Ios, particularly the museum there. It’s not his place to pry, though, so he’s content to passively speculate. 

Damianos, in turn, has heard a little from Laurent. He’s managed to keep so many things close to his chest for so long that it’s hard to let even small pieces of it go. Damianos knows that Laurent grew up in Arles but moved to Marlas for his undergrad, and worked under Arnoul while he was a student. He knows that when Arnoul retired, Laurent was basically first in line to take the position from all his work experience, despite only having a bachelor’s in ecology. 

Damianos probably knows how boring and nonexistent Laurent’s life outside of work is, without Laurent having to tell him. He’s sharper than anyone gives him credit for, but he’s so effortlessly charming that it doesn’t look the same as Laurent’s sharpness. He handles his specimens with the utmost care, and it is an innate part of him that applies the same care to being around people, regardless of who they are. Laurent wishes that he could have a little of Damianos’ trust, a little of his kindness, his tenderness. He’s only ever been like that for his plants. Even when Auguste was still alive, Laurent could never really defrost around anything else. They were so green, and alive, and they bloomed if you gave them what they needed, and they were easy to be around. They didn’t ask for things you couldn’t give them. 

Laurent supposes this is going to be as good a time as any other to go get coffee. He stops in the washroom on the way to the kitchen, and manages to splash his face with soap and water. 

His kitchen is separated from a small dining table by an island, and beyond the table are the sliding glass doors that lead out onto the deck. The small garden beyond that is becoming overgrown, but there’s no use in taming now, though, before the winter sets in. Marlas may be in Akielos, but it’s northern enough that it gets frosty at least. Everything gets tempered by the ocean anyways. There have been a couple wind storms in the last couple years that come off the water and rattle his windows, pelt rain sideways. Laurent admits that he likes that kind of weather, when it’s more acceptable to stay inside and keep cosy. The last time it happened, the power went out in Laurent’s whole neighbourhood and he made tea on his gas stove and lit candles, like some Kemptian grandmother on Longest Night. 

He makes his coffee and meanders back to his bed, still in pyjamas, setting his pillows upright so he can sit back on them, duvet pulled over his crossed legs. He’s reaching over to his nightstand to grab his phone again when he hears a loud thud from the direction of the kitchen, but sort of from outside. He freezes, and his mind’s eye, unbidden, pictures a shadowy, threateningly large figure at his deck doors, and Laurent accidentally fumbles his phone from the table onto the hardwood floor, but it’s fine, it’s in a case, and he can’t move anymore. He barely had any coffee but he’s blisteringly awake now, and he doesn’t know what to do. 

A small amount of common sense returns to him, through the bleary thorns of his depressed and now alarmingly anxious mind. He shifts his legs and stands from the bed, putting his coffee on the nightstand and grabbing his phone from the floor. He opens the phone app and keeps his fingers over the emergency number as he quietly creeps out into the hall. He feels like he’s in some sort of thriller movie when he does it, but he checks the reflection on his framed mount of _Viola persicifolia_ and doesn’t see anything silhouetted in his sliding doors. He walks around the corner.

At first, he doesn’t think anything’s out there, but he walks around his dining table and then he sees it. It’s a bird lying on his deck, angled slightly on its side, with the point of a wing bent up at an unnatural angle. It’s very still. 

Laurent’s eyebrows pull together and he thinks for a second that he doesn’t have a cat to do this, that some person has left him a bird, but then he remembers the thud and it becomes clear that the bird must have flown into his door. He looks at the door itself, and there’s a not insignificant smudge of red on the glass, and now that he sees it, he can see the red on the bird, too.

The thought reiterates itself: Laurent doesn’t know what to do. He was already carefully functioning on a fragile precipice before the coffee, but now he may have fallen off. He’s fully aware the whole time that his mind is spiralling but there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He fixates on the blood on his door and all he can think about are dead birds, and bloodstains and wooden panels and hands touching his legs and in his hair and tapping his lips and he– 

He sits down abruptly on the floor and hugs his knees. He still has his phone clutched in his hand. A tear slips out the corner of one eye and his free hand is grabbing the material of his pyjama pants. A mean voice in his head tells him that he has to get a grip, and he agrees, but he can’t, he can only hold onto his legs and try to get air into his scrunched up lungs, how could he ever breath with these things before? 

It’s a while before he stops shaking. He notices how cold his bare feet have become, and then he untenses his shoulders from where they were sitting up around his ears. He’s not quite alright yet but he knows he should call someone, and the only person he can think of in relation to dead birds is Damianos. He doesn’t have his phone number, but he might be at work today, a lot of the staff work a little on the weekends, and if he’s not in, he can just get his personal number from security. Laurent idly congratulates himself on all these rational ideas. 

He dials, and very carefully keeps his gaze from his sliding doors. Security picks up on the second ring.

“Hello Guillaume, it’s Laurent from botany– yes. Could you– are you able to give me– um, do you know Damianos yet? Then could you give me his phone number?” There’s a click and for a flash of a second Laurent thinks the line’s gone, he’s been thrown overboard, he’s _alone_ , but then something reconnects, and there’s a breathy voice on the other end.

“Hi, hello,” says Damianos. 

Laurent’s heart clenches, why is that happening, and he says “Damen! I– there’s a, it’s a, it flew into my door,” and Laurent’s voice goes up too high at the end to be normal; he is breathing slightly too quickly for a situation like this but he can’t stop. 

“Laurent? What’s wrong? What flew in? Are you okay?” He sounds like a warm breeze on the phone; there’s the slightest bit of static over the line, and Laurent deliriously imagines Damen on the other side of the world from him, connected through a fragile wire that runs under the ocean sediment. 

“A bird, there’s a bird. It’s– it died, I think. My glass door,” says Laurent. His breathing is calming down little by little, but with mention of the door there’s the reminder of the blood on it. “I can’t–” and what _he can’t_ is believe how much he’s breaking down virtually in front of the only friend he’s made since Nicaise barged his way into his phone contacts two years ago, but he stumbles on with his sentence. “I don’t know what to do,” he says, his voice suddenly very small.

“A bird hit your door and died. That’s okay,” says Damen, and Laurent doesn’t really agree but he doesn’t say anything. “Do you . . . did you, uh, want to deal with it yourself?” Laurent’s confused, he doesn’t know how to deal with this, that’s why he called Damen, is he trying to politely get out of helping him? Laurent feels the urge to cry well up behind his eyes again, but Damen is continuing. “Did you need me to come over to help you?”

“Yes! Yes, I– yes.” Laurent is beyond relieved. “I’m at home,” and he gives Damianos his address. 

“I’ll be there in like, five minutes, okay? See you soon,” and Laurent tries to whisper goodbye but hangs up instead. He clings to the words _See you soon_ in his brain until all other thoughts disappear, and his knees and hips creak as he gets up from the floor. He repeats it like a mantra while he goes into his bedroom to get dressed, the depressive lack of energy overcome by his compartmentalization; there’s someone coming over, so he needs to put on real clothes. He doesn’t really pay attention to what he’s putting on, but there’s nothing in his wardrobe that isn’t fine for Damianos to see. 

He hasn’t been fully able to keep track of time at all this morning but it’s probably the estimated five minutes before Damianos knocks on the front door. Laurent jumps as if he wasn’t expecting it, and only hesitates a little before unlocking and opening the door. 

Damianos looks nice, but a little like he ran here. He curly dark hair is wind-swept, but Laurent can see an unrecognizable car parked at the end of his driveway, so Damianos is probably not as much of a barbarian as he’s thinking. He’s got light-wash jeans on that conform to the shape of his thighs, and Laurent wonders how difficult they would be to take off. He’s still not fully come down from his panic attack, he’s not thinking right. 

“Hey,” says Damianos. His expression is first one of light concern, and then the longer he looks at Laurent’s face it gets more worried. Laurent forgot how much he had cried, his face must look like a mess. He turns around, silently inviting Damianos in and surreptitiously wipes the sleeve of his shirt under each eye. Damianos shucks his shoes off at the door and follows Laurent through the entryway and into the kitchen and then past the dining table. Laurent’s eyes skim over the bloodstain and focus on the wood of the deck a couple inches to the right of the bird. 

“Oh,” says Damianos, like he’s gently surprised that there really is a dead bird on Laurent’s deck. Laurent looks at him curiously while he peers down at it. “Alright. Do you have some paper towel and a ziploc bag I could use?” Laurent’s eyebrows converge. 

“What are you doing with it?” He’s already moving towards his kitchen, though. It’s like he’s set his mind on semi-autopilot now that Damianos is here to think for him. Laurent hates when he has days like this.

“I was gonna take it back to the museum with me,” he says, and then in response to whatever face Laurent made, he asks, “if that’s alright?”

Well, he _is_ a preparator. It’s certainly not outside his capabilities to collect specimens personally. “It’s just a sparrow or something, Damianos. The museum surely doesn’t need any more.” Laurent hands over the paper towel and watches as Damianos unlocks the sliding door and steps delicately outside in his socks. They have yellow dogs and purple squares on them; Laurent files it away for later, when his brain isn’t so sad. 

“Yeah, but how many ‘sparrows,’” Damianos does air quotes with the hand not holding paper towel, “does the museum have collected by _you_?” Laurent can’t control his face, and he blushes. Thankfully, Damianos is crouching down to the bird and saying, “plus I think it’s maybe a chaffinch?” 

Of course he’d find a way to be pedantic, Laurent thinks. Damianos folds one piece of the paper towel over the bird and scoops it up gently as he wraps the paper around. He lifts the open bag with his other hand and nestles the shrouded body inside, then rolls it up, to get as much of the air out before he seals it. His eyes flick upwards, towards the sliding door, and he moves forward so he’s balancing on one knee and the toe of his other foot to wipe at the bloodstained glass with the second paper towel. Laurent lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and crosses his arms over his chest to cover it.

Once Damianos is back inside, he glances a little around the room, and Laurent looks at him. His gaze lingers on the way Damianos’ t-shirt fits over the curve of his shoulder, and the smooth skin of his neck under his hairline. Damianos is looking at the few framed photos he has on a little side table in the corner of the room. One is Laurent and Auguste in the snowy woods when he was eleven, Auguste’s shining smile and Laurent’s subdued one, their hands clasped together and cheeks ruddy from the cold, bright blond hair tucked under their toques. The other one is just their mother, a black and white candid from her twenties, sitting outside on on a set of stone stairs. Her face is in serene profile, and a swathe of light hair hangs down nearly to her waist. She’s wearing the flowing skirts and oversize flannel button-ups that Laurent blurrily remembers the texture of from his early childhood. There’s some sort of emotional whiplash occuring in his head and his heart that Laurent thinks he’ll have to recover from after Damianos leaves. 

Damianos turns, and when their eyes meet, he smiles softly. “Anything else?” 

Laurent looks at his smile and then his dimple, and then the dead bird in his big hands, and says “Your phone number?” Damianos’ eyes go a little wide, and Laurent scrambles a bit inside before saying, “in case I want to donate more birds to the collection.” 

Damianos laughs. “Of course,” he says, and Laurent hands him his phone with the contacts page open. When it’s handed back, Laurent reads _Damen!_ and then a star emoji. Laurent adds the flexing arm emoji on the end and then saves the contact.

Laurent’s grateful that Damianos puts the bird bag on the floor while he slips his shoes back on; he’s not sure if he could handle having to hold it for him right now. As soon as he’s in the doorway and about to leave, Laurent says, “Thank you, Damen.” 

He turns around with a big goofy grin on his big dumb face and walks backwards down the walk towards the driveway, swinging the ziploc bag. “Any time!” he hoots, and Laurent’s face goes red, but he’s closing the door as quickly as possible. His mouth twitches as he tries not to smile.


	2. Populus alba

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter and the new year for Laurent and Damen and their very professional and friendly relationship. 
> 
> Thanks a bunch for your very nice comments and kudos! I love every single one of you. If I think I'm as on schedule as I seem, then the last chapter should be up by the end of next week <3

This is probably the happiest that Laurent has been in any late November since he moved to Marlas.

The big loan agreement and arrangements are coming along as well as can be expected. The curator at Ios has continued her strange correspondence hours, but the amount of information compiled is organized brilliantly. Through some quick and distracted research, it turns out that she’s not just a curator of botany, but the head of collections care and conservation for all of the natural history department. Laurent is quietly impressed after closing out the Ios staff profiles tab on his computer.

His usual volunteers are working the same hours, but a few older ones have come out of the woodwork to get some time in before the start of the winter holiday season. Laurent understands that they feel as though they have more time to spare, but he doesn’t actually need more people to be loosely in charge of; he doesn’t trust them to do useful long-term projects, and so has to scrounge around for something to occupy their time with, detracting from the time he can spend on his own work. It’s tiring, and he no longer has a zero-volunteer day during his work week. On the other hand, as in the years before, Nicaise comes in less frequently while his exams ramp up, and Laurent almost misses him. Despite his supposedly busier study schedule, Nicaise still finds time to text Laurent pictures of his cat, or snarky messages addressing Laurent and Damen’s budding friendship.

He and Damen have spent their lunches together nearly every work day since the bird hit Laurent’s door, and he got his phone number. Damen is also disturbingly pleased that Laurent calls him by his nickname now, and Laurent doesn’t know how to redirect the man’s enthusiasm. Everything about their friendship is something new that Laurent has never quite learned how to handle, but he’s strangely happy every time they see each other. Damen has occasionally performed passionate speeches to Laurent during lunchtime, usually about the proper way for bureaucracy to function effectively in the prep lab. Apparently, the skin, skeleton, and infrequently taken soft tissue samples have ample opportunity during the preparation process to become disentangled in terms of accession number and paperwork, chaotically resulting in separate catalogue numbers being assigned to different parts of the same animal. Damen has also cheerfully informed Laurent of the many arsenic-contaminated museum specimens he’s encountered during his degree, all prepared during a time when arsenic was one of the main components in specimen skin treatments. Laurent vowed never to touch a bird or mammal skin again, but Damen had assured him that as long as it was prepared less than 30 years ago it should be fine. Laurent remains sceptical. 

Laurent assures himself after each week spent having lunches with Damen that their relationship is strictly friendly and professional. In a smoother, safer world, Laurent might let himself think about Damen’s solid chest and careful hands and powerful legs without feeling the predictable constriction in his chest. He might let himself replay, in his mind’s eye, Damen smiling and throwing his head back in laughter like he did when Pallas made that joke at the singular coffee break Laurent had taken together with the prep lab. He might let his mind remain focussed on the way Damen says Laurent’s name, using the Veretian pronunciation even when bookended with Akielon conversation. He might allow himself these quiet indulgences instead of instinctively closing off that part of his mind that he can’t bring himself to trust anymore, the part that lets him savour the brief but nevertheless overwhelming moments of attraction he has for these particular aspects of Damen that he’s seen in the last month. Laurent’s not scared, he tells himself. There’s nothing in either of their actions to really suggest that they want more than what they have, and he’s fine with that. He doesn’t even think that he really knows enough about Damen to want to be more than friends anyways; Laurent still has lingering little questions about why this altogether successful and charming man uprooted himself from his life in Ios to come work at a small provincial museum in Marlas, despite his flourishing work at the Royal Museum, despite getting a degree there. 

Since getting his number, Laurent has only texted with Damen a couple of times. He finds it difficult to justify sending him messages about anything more frivolous than whether he’ll be late to lunch on a certain day; there’s a barrier that Laurent cannot bring himself to cross, and he nearly always ends up thinking hard about the image of himself that he’s trying to put forward to Damen, what kind of person he can assume the role of in order to . . . what? Remain interesting enough for Damen to keep wanting to spend time with him? In order to seem like a better version of the person Laurent really is? 

When Nicaise had gotten his number, he set the tone of their communication immediately, sending pictures of his cat and midday complaints about his classmates. Nicaise is much more made of outwardly pointed angles than Laurent was at his age, whose razor-lined personality was almost constantly pointed inwards, creating a frozen shield of unapproachability on the exterior. Still, the anger and venom and naivety are all familiar to Laurent. Although he’s sure they recognize the same things about each other, they never talk about why they both are the way that they are. Laurent hopes that Nicaise expresses all his bad attitudes because he’s in a safe enough place in his life to do so.

That’s the other thing about his friendship with Damen; he’s never pushed Laurent to say much about his childhood or life before college and the museum, even after he was in his house and saw the photos of his brother and mother. Laurent knows this amounts to some of the least that a decent person could do, but he’s appreciative nonetheless. Some quiet nights, when it’s blustery and near-storming, and Laurent has a mug of tea and has baked a dish of frozen rhubarb and strawberries in the oven, he carefully imagines telling some nebulous individual about his family and his past. Laurent hadn’t realized until midway through the last time he imagined it, that the other person had had Damen’s benevolent face. He had shaken his head and distracted himself on his phone instead of continuing; he couldn’t do that to Damen anyways, even if they did eventually become close enough for that kind of thing to be relevant. Laurent couldn’t burden such a good hearted person like that.

Regardless, their relationship is, as Laurent strongly affirms to himself, friendly and professional. His affirmations continue for the next staff meeting.

Laurent and Damen sit beside each other this time, although as a consolation to Laurent, it’s still near the far end of the table. Perhaps Damen has also realised by now that the staff meetings aren’t much to get excited about. This morning, Damen had caught up to him on the way over from the collections building, with a smile for Laurent and a pen and yellow legal pad in his hand, asking Laurent about his weekend, and in return, telling him about the camping trip he and his friend Nikandros had gone on. Of course Damen is the kind of person to be thrilled to go camping in late November; his friend must hate him. Laurent decided to tell him as much.

“No, he’s put up with me for so long that there must be some love in him,” Damen had said with a sly grin. Laurent had blushed and looked away as they walked, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, the way he does a little whenever Damen mentions his other friends. “He’s lived in Delpha for a lot longer than I have, so he was much better equipped for the weather. Who knew the wind could get up to those speeds up here?” He laughed again, as if the strength of the wind over the weekend only made it more fun.

“I’m not sure what it’s like in Ios this time of year, but in Marlas it’s the windiest time. The wind comes from off the water as well as up through the plains, converging right on top of the city and surrounding area.” Laurent’s never been camping further inland at all, let alone at this time of year, but he does know the weather well enough after seven years that he wouldn’t want to risk it. “I’m surprised your tents didn’t blow away overnight,” he had said. Damen had only grinned.

“Wouldn’t it be exciting if they had, though?”

Now Laurent almost wishes they could open the windows and have the strongest gust blow through the room, just to distract from the current announcement about museum finances. Although the loan agreement with Ios is solidifying, Laurent likely won’t announce anything on it until after the new year, so he has little purpose in attending the staff meeting yet again. However, and Laurent would never have thought he’d be feeling this way, it’s nice to be able to sit next to Damen while the executives talk, and to feel passively connected to someone just through proximity. The finance exec finishes by making a quip about something that Laurent isn’t paying attention to, and Damen, who is hunched slightly over his elbows on the table, turns his head to roll his eyes and smirk at Laurent. Laurent tenses his lips to avoid making a face in return, and Damen’s sly gaze turns back down the table at the next announcement.

“– very pleased to say we’ll be creating a new exhibit for next year, all about the natural ecosystems of Delpha, and our human interactions with it!” Laurent sighs. What the Deputy CEO is saying isn’t exactly true; this exhibit is one that the museum has had in its back pocket for nearly as long as Laurent’s been working here, and they’re finally bringing it out because they couldn’t get anything else lined up for when the current temporary exhibit is due to leave. The idea isn’t bad in theory, it’s just boring, and will essentially be derivative of what the permanent exhibits have had in them forever. The Deputy CEO continues.

“With that in mind, we’ll be asking a few collections staff members over the next couple weeks to advise on what should be included and what’s available for display over the next year.” Laurent groans inwardly. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time, when he’s sending most of his best displayable specimens to Ios on loan for all of next year; he’ll have to argue with someone eventually about it. Damen takes this moment to look at him again, and Laurent sighs, and shakes his head at him minutely. 

“We’re also hoping to hold another black tie donor evening before the end of the year, as both a thank you to sponsors and board members, and to start interest in the new exhibit. All staff are, of course, invited,” she continues, but Laurent has stopped listening. 

When the meeting ends, Laurent and Damen walk back to the collections building together. They come to a standstill outside the doors of the prep lab.

“I’ll see you in a bit for lunch?” asks Damen. Laurent nods, and looks out the large floor-to-ceiling windows that line one side of the hallway. It’s getting cloudy again, probably gearing up for another overnight storm. Damen leans to the side to catch his attention. “Everything alright?”

“Yes, of course,” Laurent says on instinct. Damen doesn’t seem to buy it, his eyebrows raising, an expectant look creeping onto his face. “It’s just– thinking about the new exhibit. And the Ios loan,” Laurent says. He’s told Damen about how big the loan is this year and how in depth the process is becoming, so he invokes it to sway Damen into leaving it alone. Damen sees it for what it is, and nods, turning towards the prep lab doors. He’s allowing Laurent the out, so he starts moving to the elevator.

“See you soon, then,” says Damen with slightly more of his usual cheer, and Laurent doesn’t reply, but does turn his head as he walks to watch Damen unlock the prep lab door, and catch his eyes briefly before he steps in. Laurent calls for the elevator and tries to clear his mind in preparation for the 3 or so hours of work before lunch. He doesn’t know what he was thinking just now, letting Damen see him like that, but Laurent guesses that he could always just blame the shorter days, or seasonal depression if Damen decides to ask further. He probably won’t ask further though, because good people don’t do that, good friends don’t do that, and his and Damen’s relationship is friendly, and professional. 

#

The cafe set aside from the lobby of the museum is frequented by many staff members in addition to its usual tourist patrons, but Laurent rarely took coffee breaks to begin with, let alone ones so close to the crowds and the noise. This was why he surprised himself by accepting Damen’s offer to take a break in the mid-morning, although it was possible that he had merely been caught off guard by Damen’s visit to his office to invite him down in person. Damen had arrived in his doorway and thrown him so many ingratiating smiles, his dimple bringing his powers of persuasion to extremes too much for Laurent’s reluctance to fight, so he had accepted. Damen had stayed in the doorway for too long, practically bouncing on his toes, and led Laurent around the corner with a soft hand on his shoulder, only for a moment, and Laurent had smiled to himself down the aisle of cabinets with Damen following closely behind him. 

Despite the usual hectic atmosphere of early December in the museum, as local schools take classes on pre-holiday field trips, and many Veretians stop in on their way down to warmer climes, the lobby is definitely not as busy as it could be. After seven years Laurent can say with confidence that the museum’s busiest season is the summer; there’s a tourism advantage to being in the middle of the coast, where the weather is cooler than the scorching southern provinces, but considerably warmer than in northern Vere. 

They get their coffees and find a table out of the way, and Damen practically melts into his chair with a groan, as if he’s finally been able to sit down for the first time today. Laurent can’t say he’s not pleased to have a break either. He takes a long sip of his still too hot coffee, because he’s not sure what else to do; they’ve spent their lunches together, but he’s only had morning coffee with Damen once, and it was as more of a last minute invitation to a prep lab coffee break than this one-on-one business. He looks across the wide hall towards the four immense Delfeur tapestries that hang on the high wall, carefully angled away from the windows so they don’t receive too much direct sunlight. He doesn’t realise Damen has followed his gaze until he speaks. 

“It’s pretty cool to have such well-preserved textiles made so long ago,” Damen comments. “I haven’t really looked at them up close yet. Are they from Veretian times, or Artesian?”

Laurent follows the line of a horse’s neck outlined in light blue, and follows the rider’s arm holding the reins up to the other hand, outstretched towards the wavy egg-yellow rays of the sun. He hasn’t really inspected them closely since he was starting college here, only visiting the museum. He remembers feeling so small in comparison to the figures hanging above, the tableaus full of movement and colour, a vibrancy so invigorating and captivating that they could not be ignored. 

“They’re from a time roughly in between the split of Artes and the second Veretian ruling,” he says, as if repeating from the plaque on the wall from across the lobby. “I think the researchers can’t pinpoint exactly when, because of inconsistencies when trying to age the thread. There’s also the matter of finding one of them all the way in Acquitart, and one just a couple miles north of Karthas, despite the unarguable Marlas symbolism.” Laurent points across at the tapestries in question, and circles his finger around in the air vaguely, trying to illuminate from this distance the shield patterns in the corners, the layout of the sun in each of the tableaus, and the tiny ocean birds in the sky. The one on the far right, one of the ones found near Marlas, has a barely-clothed figure lounging among many suitors, a bright gold wreath on his head, twisting a vine between his fingers, being fed fruits from the hand of a curvy, red-headed servant. There are hooded crows perched at the tops of the stone columns draped with cloth and hanging plants, dappling the sunlight on the bare flesh of the people below. The scene exudes a kind of steamy warmth, with heated bodies and summer sun, rich wine and delectable food, all over top of a sensual display of easy affection and desire. The fact that people wove this together, used their hands to create the detail and the beauty of such a luxuriant scene, this is what moves Laurent the most when he sees them. 

“Seeing them all like this, it’s clear they were meant to be together,” says Damen. They lapse into silence, both sipping their coffee. Laurent feels anxious suddenly, and changes the topic.

“Have the execs approached the prep lab about the new exhibit?” Damen shakes his head, wordlessly encouraging Laurent to go on. “I guess they wouldn’t need new skins or anything. They’ve been hounding me relentlessly for specimens all week, ever since the staff meeting. I don’t know how to let them down any more firmly.”

Damen frowns. “The loan,” he says simply, and Laurent takes another gulp of coffee. 

“The ones who’ve accepted that they’re not getting much keep asking for advice on how to display the stuff we have left, but what’s left is either old and ugly, or pricelessly valuable in terms of data, which we need to keep in the collection anyways in case researchers visit. They might be better off going out and collecting moss from the park,” and Damen laughs lightly.

“I’m sure if you suggested it with a sufficiently serious face they might just do it,” he says. Laurent’s mouth quirks up at that, and he hides it behind another sip. 

“I’m not getting paid enough to do this kind of work for them on top of everything else,” he mutters. He’s pretty much finished his coffee. Damen’s still looking over at him when he glances back, a knowing but sympathetic smile on his face. Laurent feels his cheeks begin to pink out of nowhere; since when did catching Damen watching him make him react like this? He finds the deepest, brownest parts of his eyes, framed by lashes long as a cow’s, before getting up from the table. 

Damen rises from the terrible metal cafe chair as well, and they toss their cups before crossing the lobby. In a moment of spontaneity, Laurent takes a route that will bring them near the far left tapestry, the one with the horse and rider. They’re not kept behind glass, but there’s a barrier in front that would block anyone from directly reaching over. Laurent thinks suddenly about sticking his hand out, like the woven rider above them, to touch the threads like the man is reaching for the sun. He doesn’t though. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Damen with his head tilted up to look at the highest part of the tapestry. Laurent drinks in the angle of his jaw, the strength of his neck, and the dark, curly hair falling back from his forehead, and imagines a golden wreath of leaves perched on his head, like the one on the king in the tapestry at the other end of the hall.

#

Laurent had almost thought twice about texting a picture of himself in his nice suit to Nicaise, but he was glad he followed through when the only reply he got was _Awful. You look more frigid than a nun_ , which really meant that Nicaise found his outfit at least somewhat acceptable. The kid had been disappointed to find out volunteers weren’t invited to the evening event, and had grumbled on his way back to the new Rosaceae mounts about who really does all the work around here. 

Now that he’s here and faced with the fancied up lobby and temporary tables set up serving drinks, and all the high-end donors and board members mingling in their black-tie outfits, Laurent almost wishes that Nicaise could have come, too. 

He gets some ginger ale in a plastic wine glass from one of the drinks tables just to have something sparkling in his hand, and follows the gradual flow of guests up to the exhibit floors. The permanent exhibits are decorated just enough to remain classy, so that the guests can take selfies in front of a block of limestone depicting an ancient Delphan kyros instatement procession without appearing so bourgeois as to actually take selfies in front of priceless artifacts. Laurent rolls his eyes; such is the way of the world, and museums.

There are more temporary bars set up on these upper floors as well, and when he goes to get a second ginger ale, he bumps into Damen. He’s dressed in a well-fitted black suit, but after weeks of casual prep lab dress, Laurent can’t help but feel like this was never meant to be Damen’s natural state, that there’s something so performative about the get-up. A small part of his brain suggests that Damen might take off the jacket, undo a couple buttons, and roll up his shirt sleeves and he’d look better, but Laurent quickly smothers the notion. Damen’s getting a beer, and gives Laurent a genuinely pleased smile after he takes the bottle from the bartender. 

“Good to see you, Laurent,” he says, as if they hadn’t seen each other at lunch only yesterday. “Come see the artifacts with me!” 

Laurent hopes his expression is warm enough to show his enthusiasm at getting away from the crowd around the bar, and nods. They sidle around guests and end up in a less inhabited section of the human history exhibit. There’s not a lot here in Marlas that would be more impressive than the collection in Ios, but they have some sculptures and tablets from Delphan ruins, and recreations of cave paintings and the like. They end up in front of a display of ancient coinage before Damen speaks again.

“I always thought archaeology might be neat if I wasn’t so into modern animals,” he admits quietly. “I don’t know if my parents would have been more or less disappointed in that career path, though,” and he laughs, but with a touch of embarrassment. Laurent looks at him, and Damen is still roaming his eyes over the gold in front of them, but there’s a tightness in the corner of his mouth that isn’t usually there. Laurent seriously acknowledges to himself that Damen is beginning to share a weakness with him, but Laurent’s never been quite sure if this is a moment where he should try to comfort someone. 

Damen speaks again before Laurent decides on a strategy. “My brother, he’s older, but he never– he didn’t think much of school or anything, and my father decided that I was the one he would put his hopes on for academic success.” Laurent’s sure that Damen’s no longer really looking at the coins, but he’s still staring down intently in their direction. Laurent turns so his hip is resting against the glass of the case and he’s facing Damen with his whole body. Damen glances up at the movement and he tries to flash a smile, like he’s just kidding. 

“Sorry I’m being such a downer,” he says, but Laurent suddenly doesn’t feel like letting him get away with it.

“You’ve got your master’s and a stable job. How could a parent not be happy with that, at least?” Damen’s mouth twists, like he’s just realized what kind of conversation he’s started. 

“There were . . . complications, in my last year there. I– he wanted me to go straight into a doctoral program, and it was practically set up for me at the university but . . .” Damen’s eyes drift to the side, and Laurent steels himself. He grips his cup of ginger ale a little tighter. “There was a woman,” he finishes, simply, like this encapsulates every issue, is substantial for an explanation. 

Laurent raises an eyebrow. He knows that looking unimpressed is less likely to console Damen, but he truly can’t react any other way to this information. Damen huffs. 

“We were very committed to each other, until . . . she wasn’t, anymore. And I had to get away from that somehow, after I finished my degree.” This explanation is a little better, Laurent acquiesces. 

“So you came to Marlas,” Laurent says plainly, keeping judgement out of his voice. Damen looks a little relieved at the understanding, and the tension that had been creeping into his shoulders smooths away a little. 

“Nikandros was already here, so I asked him if he wouldn’t mind if I stayed with him for a while. Then I applied for the job, and, well.” Laurent nods. No museum in their right mind would turn down a preparator like Damen for a position. 

“I can’t say much, as I only have a bachelor’s and I have no family,” Laurent says wryly, and he can see the pity coming in Damen’s expression and firmly ignores it. “And I’ve only known you for three months. But you did what you needed to do, and that takes more courage than telling your son they’re not living up to your unrealistic expectations.” He looks back at the coins, and all their shiny insignias, and then back to Damen’s face. “Let’s walk around more, you’ve hardly seen any artifacts,” and good, that gets Damen to smile again, even if it’s still slightly sad.

They walk through a couple rooms, stopping at the odd statuette or marble bust that catches their interest. There are a pair of bronze statues that Laurent knows were brought up from the ocean a couple years before he came to Marlas, and he points them out to Damen. They’re supposed to be wrestlers, according to the explanation on the plaque; they’re both nude, and one is standing contrapposto, leaning slightly above a leg with a scraper in one hand, the other arm rusted off long ago. The other is immediately beside, mounted on a separate low block. His arms are thrust forward and his legs are tensed and braced against the ground as if grappling with someone, but both hands have fallen away, presumably lost along with his partner. A transparent plastic cylinder supports the truncated arms so the sculpture cannot fall. Damen actually brings out his phone and walks around to find the best angle for a picture of both; Laurent steps out of the way with a smirk. 

“I’m sending this to Nik, he’ll love it,” Damen says as he types something out on his phone with a cheeky grin, one which conveys to Laurent that Nikandros will only find this amusing because Damen is being goofy about it. 

“When you first mentioned him to me I thought–” Laurent catches himself. Damen’s instantly curious though, and tries to tease it out of him.

“Go on, you thought what?” he says with a laugh, and the dimple is there again, and Laurent’s powerless. 

“I thought you were – lovers,” he finishes feebly, and he can feel his face turning bright red. He thinks his worst imaginings are confirmed when Damen lets out a laugh too loud to be respectable at this kind of event, and Laurent tries to arrange his face into something more disapproving.

“Lovers!? What century are you from?” Damen clutches his stomach with another bout of laughter, a little quieter than last time. Laurent stands there, beside the two naked bronze wrestlers, uncomfortably willing his ruthless blush to disappear. Damen recovers gradually. “But no, no we’re not. Oh god,” and he giggles a bit more. 

“Or at least exes, or something,” Laurent grumbles, and Damen looks back at him again, still smiling warmly, and brings his phone up. Before Laurent can object, he snaps a picture. 

“No, we’re just good friends who have known each other since we were embarrassingly young. He might have been cute enough to be boyfriend material for me if I didn’t know every last cringeworthy detail about his life,” he says, and he’s looking back up from his phone to flash a smile at Laurent again. “Not that I haven’t had ex-boyfriends do cringey things.”

Laurent’s phone chimes in his pocket; Damen’s texted him the picture he just took. He’s standing where he’s standing right now, with his hands down at his sides, and a strange mix of mild consternation and amusement on his face, directed at the camera. His cheeks aren’t as red as he thought they were. His hair is shining almost white with the gleam from the overhead lighting, and the bronzes beside him positively glow under it. Laurent thinks they’d look even nicer in the daytime, under the natural light of the sun. 

He puts his phone away and Damen has walked over to him in the time he’s been looking at the picture. Laurent has to tilt his head up to meet his crinkled, delighted eyes, and they meet his in return. Damen’s cheeks look impossibly soft, like he shaved right before the event, and Laurent is sure that his blush has returned, and he belatedly realises that his mouth is still open from before, when he was going to say something, but he can’t remember what, now. He swallows thickly, and gestures to one of the doorways. 

“There’s a bust of Amphitrite further along. It’s very beautiful,” he says, and he doesn’t know where he managed to pull something so coherent from, but Damen is nodding with his almost ever present smile and in a rare, unthinking moment, Laurent reaches for the sleeve of Damen’s suit. He gently tugs him in the direction of the other room and lets his grip fall away after a few steps. Damen stays close behind, though, and they wander the night like that, in amongst the other guests, looking at old, beautiful, priceless objects.

# 

He’s sitting very close to Damen, practically in his lap, on a soft, plush surface, with his legs on top of and almost hooking around one of Damen’s thick thighs. Their faces are also close together, and he can feel an arm supporting him around his back, the hand clutching his waist. Laurent doesn’t really know where his own arms are, but he and Damen are sharing breaths, he can feel each one hit his lower face in hot, humid gusts. They both lean even more forward at the same time, so that Laurent’s right cheek is alongside Damen’s, and he feels soft lips against his neck, just behind his ear, and it makes him shiver slightly. He knows where one of his own hands is, now, as it reaches up to card through Damen’s thick hair, just above where it ends at his nape, and it feels simultaneously weightless and heavy, with natural grease, but Laurent doesn’t mind, only focuses on the breaths he now feels down his neck, along the top of his shoulder. 

The thumb of Damen’s hand at his waist is rubbing back and forth, but Laurent realises that he’s wearing fabric, and he idly wishes he could feel that hand directly on his skin. He takes his hand from Damen’s hair and wipes it down his neck and around to his broad, bare chest, and Laurent pulls his head back so that he can see his own progress. His pale hand contrasts starkly with the brown of Damen’s skin, and he scratches his nails gently into the soft hair on his chest. The back of a finger comes up to stroke at Laurent’s cheek, and he sighs into it, shifting his hips a little against the side of Damen’s thigh. A kiss little more than a press of velvet lips lands on Laurent’s temple. Everything feels like it’s moving through molasses. The hand disappears from his face and comes down on Laurent’s hip bone, just under Damen’s other hand still on his flank. 

Laurent feels his breathing pick up, and so does Damen’s to match, and the hand shifts ever so slowly inwards from Laurent’s hip towards his groin. Damen is mouthing down his cheek now, eyelashes brushing butterfly kisses along his skin, and Laurent wants his mouth softly on his neck again. Damen’s legs come together, tensing, squeezing Laurent’s calves between them, the finer hair on his thighs not enough to tickle. Time slows down impossibly further, and Laurent suddenly needs to take a deeper breath, and just as soon as he does, the hand, much more firmly than any other touch before it, reaches and roughly pushes against his cock, and– 

Laurent gasps into his pillow and sits up abruptly. He’s disoriented, and he brings his hands up around his head. The memory of the dream fades quickly away, except for the very last moment, which, now that he is awake, is too much like what he’s tried to either forget or overcome in the last 10 years, so his arousal rapidly turns into disgust and shame. He hasn’t had dreams like this for a long while, but even then they’ve been nothing as sweet or almost innocently intimate as this one. He tries to will his hardness away and collapses back onto his pillow, squeezing his eyes shut.

He goes over the facts as they stand, more or less to distract himself from the more dangerous parts of his memory that the end of the dream has tried to dredge up. He knows he finds Damen attractive. He knows that, as far as he can tell, Damen is a good man. He knows that Damen is bisexual. He doesn’t know how Damen might react to either A), a confession of Laurent’s attraction, which seems much too humiliating to ever actually do, or B), a recounting of Laurent’s past sexual trauma. Laurent steers his mind away from the latter point out of self-preserving habit. He doesn’t know if Damen is attracted to him, but no one in the past has been this friendly without certain motivations. However, Damen’s goodness proves the opposite, that he at least wants to genuinely be friends with Laurent. It’s all becoming a little too complex for his mind at the moment, which is never usually a problem, but his tiredness, and the effort of keeping the invasive thoughts at bay are making the navigation of this emotional train of thought very, very difficult. He focuses on his own breathing instead, a breath in through his nose, and a hushed one out through his mouth, until his mind calms, and he’s back on the edge of sleep.

Laurent, very quietly, even in his mind, thinks that if he ever gets the chance, he might want to have sex with Damen. He wants to see if those moments would be as cherished as Damen has treated his casual, platonic interactions with Laurent before. He wants to see how different it could be to the rotten, festering afterimages of his youth. He wants to believe that he could feel better, and see himself in a lighter, less encumbered paradigm. Laurent wants, in the darkness of his bedroom, in the too-early hours of the morning, to allow himself all of this, knowing that his currently agitated and exhausted mind will be a little more stably frozen over in the morning.

#

It’s late in December, in the slow week before New Year’s, when Damen doesn’t show up to lunch, and doesn’t answer Laurent’s subsequent hesitant text regarding his whereabouts. 

The couple weeks after the donor evening had been filled with uncomfortable but eventually reasoned meetings with curators and designers for the new exhibit. After finally getting them to understand the priority given to the Ios loan that’s been almost a year in the making, they instead chose to rely more and more on Laurent’s advice for what kinds of plant material they should include, even if there won’t be as many spaces filled with real specimens. It’s as if he’s suddenly the go-to Delphan plant expert, and he gets called up to other people’s offices so frequently that Laurent, at first jokingly, and then with gradually increasing seriousness, considers drawing up a consultation fee, or at least some sort of request for a bonus. 

The last details of the Ios loan agreement had been hammered out too, and Laurent’s volunteers will be putting aside other projects in the new year to help begin packing the specimens for travel. His correspondence with the curator had continued to impress him, but possibly only in that way that one is impressed after so many bad previous encounters had left him with low expectations. Laurent still shivers at the horrible emails sent to and fro by the collections manager at Ravenel, who had little common sense and no reasonable grasp of the passage of time. After perusing her staff profile in a fit of boredom for the fifth time, Laurent dazedly concluded that the Ios curator must be what he would’ve been like if he’d perhaps stayed in Arles and maybe gotten a doctorate. She’s accomplished, and from the look of her eyes in the website photo, she’s been ruthless in the pursuit of those accomplishments. On one exceptionally cold evening wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, Laurent had miserably wondered if she’d ever looked at his DPMNH staff profile in return; he had imagined a crudely animated version of her website photo laughing cruelly and drinking champagne while sneering at his bachelor’s degree and zero publications. 

As for Damen, he and Laurent have continued their daily lunches, and had one more morning coffee break in the lobby. Laurent has maintained a level of what he hopes is cool, inner restraint in terms of the simmering attraction he’s developed for Damen. He makes sure his eyes never linger for longer than they should, even when faced with the smooth brown skin on the tops of his hands, or the crinkle around his eyes that appears when he smiles or laughs. Not to mention that dimple. He never touches Damen either, yet each casual placement of Damen’s solid hand on his shoulder as they exit the staff lounge, or brush of fingers when Damen hands him a mug of tea ignites a little more flame under his heart. Laurent finds himself clutching his own hands hard together in his lap when they talk, or gripping his fork so firmly that it leaves a little red mark on his hand that smooths away once he lets it go. 

Laurent also frequently finds himself noting particular instances in Damen’s interactions when they’re around other people. He speaks to his volunteers in the prep lab with firm respect, and trusts them to do their tasks without belabouring them with minute instructions. Laurent has found himself replaying in his mind the time when they were walking back through the lobby from lunch one afternoon, and Damen had seen a small child looking quietly panicked and lost near the escalator. He had done that thing that most adults do when faced with children, and crouched down on his heels to smile and softly ask something about finding parents. Laurent had been standing a little ways away; truthfully he hadn’t noticed the kid while on his singularly focussed path towards the door to the collections building, and had only turned when he realised Damen was no longer beside him. It hadn’t taken much longer than forty seconds for the parents to be found, and Damen had grinned pleasantly like the sweet young man he is at their thanks, but had kept the joy of the good deed on his face when he trotted back over to Laurent. It has become unquestionably clear that Damen was truly meant to lead in this charismatic, genuine way, and Laurent is slightly in awe. He hopes that either Damen hasn’t noticed all of his blushing, or that he is much too polite to ever comment on it. Ideally he attributes it solely to the bite of colder weather. 

It hasn’t been longer than 5 minutes since Laurent sent the simple text asking Damen if they were still meeting for lunch, but he can distantly feel himself becoming anxious. The little tendrils of doubt start to creep over him with increasing mortification; what if Damen doesn’t want to eat lunch with him anymore, what if he’s found better people to associate with, what if he’s found out, through implausible means, something to do with Laurent’s past and now hates him for it? He’s had a better handle on himself lately, and desperately doesn’t want to break down at work, so he takes a direct course of action instead. After stuffing his lunch in the staff room fridge and walking crisply over to the collections building, he unlocks the prep lab door.

It’s an off-day for Damen’s volunteers, all either visiting family for the holidays or taking the day off, so there’s no one else in the lab besides Damen. Half the lights are off for some reason, and Laurent walks through the anteroom to the main lab area to see if Damen’s actually here. Maybe he’s taken the day off too, and just forgot to forewarn Laurent? A more sensible part of his brain affirms that this is much more likely than the scenarios he was cooking up earlier. 

He hears a sound from one of the adjoining rooms just before Damen strides in, with one of the most wide-eyed, distressed expressions that Laurent has ever seen on his usually carefree face. He’s got both arms up, elbows bent, and is holding a long, brown, plastic-wrapped and ramrod straight creature in each hand. He walks hastily forward when he spots Laurent, dodging around the main table.

“Laurent! It’s the worst thing, I was organizing the freezer because everyone else is home, and I took so many things out just for a minute,” Damen gestures with one of his frozen specimens to the table, which is laid out with slowly melting specimens in individual plastic bags. “The timer on the freezer door lock must have been set by accident and now I can’t get back in, and I’ve been worried about what to do for the past ten minutes, and these minks are all gonna melt and go _so_ bad, Laurent– what are you . . ?” 

Laurent hasn’t laughed this hard in his life, and he can’t believe he’s laughing at this man who he only recently admitted to himself that he has an unbelievably huge crush on, but he can’t help it, and he’s gasping for air now. He valiantly tries to stop, to regain some composure but it’s just too ridiculous, how could he have been afraid that Damen suddenly didn’t want to have lunch with him when in reality, Damen’s here, locked out of a freezer and surrounded by warming dead animals and holding _mink-sicles_ in his hands? Laurent has to bend over, prop his hands on his knees, it’s all coming out of him now. He vaguely registers that Damen has relaxed now, bringing the minks down to his sides, and he’s starting to giggle along with him too. Laurent feels tiny, breathless tears at the corners of his eyes and he can’t stop laughing; it isn’t helped when Damen’s giggles transform into light-filled, booming laughter as well. They must look like complete idiots, the pair of them, but right now Laurent couldn’t care less, he’s so surprised and relieved and happy. 

Damen manages to strangle out through his own laughter, “I guess I was panicking a bit too much? This is– I’m so– stupid!” and he’s overcome by the hilarity again. After another doubled-over, astounding moment Laurent regains some of his ability to breath normally, and straightens up, wiping at the tears in his eyes, and letting out uselessly unattractive giggles for every three or so breaths he takes. Damen’s mostly recovered as well, and he’s still smiling at Laurent, and still holding onto those two minks, but it’s probably for the best; Laurent is just staring now, probably with his own ludicrous grin, taking weirdly deep breaths now, and he hysterically thinks that if Damen’s hands were free that he would try to jump into them, but there’s no way he’s coming that close to those frozen mustelids, he can see there’s still frozen blood on them and everything. He lets out one last breathy laugh between his teeth, and then – the sound of the freezer door unlocking.

“Amazing,” wheezes Damen, and Laurent follows him over to the freezer. 

It takes a minute for them to get coordinated; Damen’s jubilance is infectious, and Laurent is uncharacteristically compliant with his task of keeping the freezer door open while Damen shuttles back and forth, putting specimens from the table back into their places in the freezer. Laurent doesn’t know how much organization really went on if the automatic lock of the freezer door put him as out of commission as he seemed when Laurent got here. 

Laurent manoeuvres so that he’s propped against the inside of the door with his back, so he can cross his arms and tuck his hands somewhere warmer. He closes his eyes, even though Damen’s still coming and going and will probably see him, and lets the cold air from the freezer, circulated around by the mechanism of the freezer fans, wash over him. Laurent imagines himself living in this gentle cold, an arctic stillness surrounding him for miles and miles. He imagines _Dryas octopetala_ scattered on the rocky barren before him and cupped in his pale hands, wind gusting around his body and fluffing his hair, hard rocks and permafrost underneath his feet. There is a calm in this alpine cold that he mentally affiliates with the counterpart heat of hot chocolate, a soft blanket by a fireplace, a warm, knitted envelope of atmosphere in a mossy cottage. He feels so content that it’s stark and surprising how unlike normal these past couple minutes have been, how different from the past, even different from his recent interactions with Damen. He remembers how solidly it felt like they were drifting apart while he was waiting for lunch, how hesitant he had been to send even a simple text, how sure his anxious mind had been of Damen’s realization of his corrupted character, a sudden acrimony. Yet now he wants to live forever in this liminal space between coldness and warmth, he wants to bloom and thrive under these newly habitable conditions. He doesn’t want to let it go. 

A hand touches his elbow. Laurent’s eyes blink open, he hadn’t heard Damen stop. He has to squint at fluorescent lights when he turns to face him, eyes getting used to the brightness again. 

“Lunch?” asks Damen. He’s wiping his freshly washed hands with a paper towel. 

“Yes,” Laurent says quietly, heartbeat thundering. 

#

Damen invites Laurent over to Nikandros’ house for New Year’s. He’s been staying with Nik there since he moved, so it’s not as rude as an invitation to someone else’s party could seem, but Laurent still tries to politely decline when Damen first asks. Damen’s innate and dogged determination eventually pulls away Laurent’s reluctance to socialize, or that’s at least what Laurent lets him believe. He’s become slightly less misanthropic since meeting Damen, and as much as he attempts to tamp down on his own heart, he does feel his pulse pick up at the chance to see more of Damen outside of work. What kind of lovesick teenager is he becoming. 

Thus, Laurent arrives on Nikandros’ doorstep, bundled up in his wool coat and a scarf, hands stuffed in pockets, at 10:56pm on New Year’s Eve. It had been an open invitation, a ‘some of us will be there early for dinner but you can just show up when you want to’ sort of party. Laurent’s tentative plan had been to aim for 11 o’clock, stay for an hour, and leave after midnight, when it’s socially acceptable and pretty much encouraged for guests to leave. He considers waiting the last 4 minutes back in his car, but he had already texted Damen when he left that he was on his way.

A silhouette appears in the stained glass panels of the front door soon after he rings the doorbell. Damen, predictably, greets Laurent with an ebullient smile and a half-full glass of beer in his hand.

“You made it! Here, come in,” he cheers, and Laurent is ushered in. Damen closes and re-locks the door and edges around Laurent while he’s crouched to untie his shoes. Like a considerate co-host, he takes Laurent’s coat and throws it on one of the pegs in the entryway. Either Nikandros owns a lot of varied outerwear or there are a fair number of people at this party.

“Do you want something to drink? We got beer,” he holds up his own glass, “and there’s some griva, but I think but Nik’s keeping a pretty tight lid on it, wherever it is.” Laurent must get some sort of look on his face, because Damen’s rushing to reassure him. “There’s bubbly too, of course! And I think Lydos brought some Isthiman mango juice? Or there’s coolers in the fridge, and vodka in the freezer, or there’s . . . water?” Damen’s recitation of every beverage currently in the house tapers off. Laurent sometimes likes to see how long he can get Damen to expand on topics before he becomes uncomfortable, just by keeping an impenetrably neutral expression, and lightly raising his eyebrows if it seems like Damen is finishing. So far he’s gotten him to spend 9 minutes listing nearly all of the species of birds annually sent to the museum by a lighthouse keeper a few miles to the south. 

Laurent doesn’t quite take pity on him yet and smiles impishly. “Is it real champagne?”

Damen laughs sheepishly, and brings a hand to the back of his neck. “Ah, no, I think it’s whatever prosecco Nik picked up at the store. But it’s good?” Laurent raises a disbelieving eyebrow and Damen blushes brilliantly. “Good for store wine?” His voice is getting higher. Laurent should really give him a break, but Damen’s still smiling and this is pretty fun. 

“Maybe some mango juice,” says Laurent. Damen laughs breathily and his shoulders untense. They go to the kitchen.

Nikandros’ house is in an older style, but simply and efficiently laid out, studded with small items of personality; there had been large, orderly flower pots on the porch, and souvenir trinkets are dotted around on the full bookshelves. The rug that Laurent could see in the living room looks antique and well cared for. The house is in an area that’s closer to the university, but nowhere near any sort of undergraduate student housing, which Laurent can respect. He’s doing his PhD in something Laurent has barely bothered to remember; political science, or international studies, or something else on the more diplomatic side of the social sciences. Laurent can see why he and Damen are friends; Damen’s spontaneity and gregarious nature are tempered by Nikandros’ steadier keel, and both are wrapped so tightly in loyalty for each other that it’s uniquely obvious how they’ve remained such close friends for all these years, despite living apart since the end of high school. It’s no real wonder that Laurent had had suspicions of romance between them. 

Damen pours him a glass of juice from the bottle in the fridge, and refills his glass of beer before Laurent is escorted to the living room. There had been other party guests chatting in the kitchen, and he can see through the back doors that there are more people outside, smoking and cooling off. Damen was good to bring him in here, though; there are people he knows from the prep lab, like Pallas and Kashel. Pallas’ boyfriend is also here, who Laurent had met briefly at last year’s donor evening, and who will always be associated in Laurent’s mind as the rowdy, southern Veretian man who had accidentally set off an alarm in one of the natural history galleries by trying to hide behind a meteorite display to make out with Pallas. 

Laurent is introduced to some of Damen and Nik’s other friends, like Aktis, and Lydos, who brought the mango juice back from his trip to Isthima. Nikandros is also here, holding court from a big armchair, relaxed back with a bottle of red wine propped on top of his knee with a hand. His eyes narrow slightly in Laurent’s direction at his introduction, and he keeps flicking his gaze to Damen, but he doesn’t say anything. Laurent keeps sipping his drink. 

Kashel is expounding on the recent exploits of the dermestid beetles in the bug room at the museum when an older, slightly greying Akielon man bursts in to the living room through the glass door, triumphantly thrusting a dusty dark bottle into the air, and pointing an accusatory finger at Nikandros. 

“It was in the shed, you sly dog! Griva for all!” The man laughs like he’s already been drinking heavily and Nikandros sighs in acquiescence. He sets his wine down on the coffee table before getting up and herding the man and his equally cheery comrades into the kitchen. There’s the sound of more glasses being pulled from the cupboards.

Damen leans over to Laurent. “That’s Makedon, one of Nik’s supervisors. Although it always seems like it’s Nik who actually does the supervising . . .” Damen glances back at the kitchen when there’s a rough shout and the sound of glass falling on the floor. He laughs and turns back to Laurent. “Have you had griva before?”

Laurent shakes his head. He doesn’t know if this is the point when he’s supposed to tell Damen that he doesn’t actually like to drink. Laurent had been more than relieved when he’d mentioned non-alcoholic drinks in his list earlier, and hadn’t said anything about Laurent’s choice. But really, why should he be surprised at this sort of non-judgmental behaviour from Damen at this point?

“All I can say is _yikes_. It tastes like old boots and is about as toxic as arsenic, but it’s, uh, effective? Makedon keeps saying it’s the traditional drink of Delpha, and Nik has to confiscate it every time he brings it over.” Damen laughs. The noises from the kitchen have quieted but he looks back to the doorway, before turning back to Laurent with a gleam in his eye. “Do you wanna go see?”

Laurent is sceptical of the entertainment that steadily drinking men could provide, but he’s now at the mercy of Damen’s hand, which had wrapped around Laurent’s when they’d stood up from the couch. He gently pulls Laurent forward to the kitchen and his heart feels silly but he shoves the feeling down. He’s released when they reach the kitchen island; Laurent catches Nikandros’ sharp glance at their briefly joined hands and then at Damen, but the man is oblivious to any daggers from Nikandros’ eyes, instead grinning at the scene before them.

Makedon and his buddies are taking turns pouring shots while Nikandros spectates, much like a surprisingly tolerant yet nonetheless attentive school chaperone. Makedon gives a hurrah at Damen’s approach and amiably pours him a shot. Damen acts out an unconvincing refusal before taking the shot and coming to stand next to Laurent, who’s been hanging out back by the sink, closer to the living room doorway.

“To your health, if that’s possible?” Laurent says, lifting his own glass of juice. They clink glasses carefully, and Damen visibly steels himself. He gives his drink an uneasy look.

“You sure you don’t wanna try?” Laurent can tell he’s asking more out of desperation rather than putting pressure on him, so Laurent leans forward enough to take a sniff of the shot glass. His eyes water a little and he blinks it away.

“I’m fine,” Laurent smiles blithely at him. He lifts his juice and takes a slow sip, watching while Damen throws the griva back. His face instantly contorts into a grotesque, his eyes squeezing shut and sticking his tongue out. Damen left his beer in the living room, so Laurent offers him a sip of the deliciously cooling mango as a chaser. Damen looks eternally grateful. 

It’s coming up on 11:50 already, after their return to the living room to chat with people, or in Laurent’s case, to sit and make looks at Damen while other people talk. Laurent excuses himself to the washroom.

He feels very tired already; the last time he stayed up this late was back in undergrad, when he at least had the adrenaline of finishing assignments to keep him awake. Now he’s expected to be at the museum by 8am so he can accumulate hours for his flex day off, and his therapist had impressed upon him the importance of sufficient and regular amounts of sleep. He runs his wrists under cool water from the tap, and then applies cold fingers under his eyes and around his face. He looks at himself in the mirror.

Laurent remembers one night in undergrad when he’d been invited out by a classmate acquaintance to an apartment party on the other side of campus. He’d arrived alone, and hadn’t seen his classmate, and had decided to drink the homemade punch, persuaded by a kind-looking girl wearing a crop top with snakes on it. After a couple cups he’d quickly become drunk, and had found himself in the darkened dancing room, jumping along to remixes and songs from middle school. He remembers feeling very powerful while dancing, and relieved to be intoxicated enough to forget about anybody who might be looking at him. It had only been when he’d stumbled to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror under the harsh light that he had seen, blurrily, how powerless he really was. He hadn’t really changed at all since escaping Arles, he’d only convinced himself that he had taken control, when in reality, he was a mess in the mirror, with sweaty hair and pink cheeks and wet lips. 

He can’t say he hasn’t changed since he was eighteen though, so staring soberly in the mirror now, Laurent looks at his own blue eyes. They always remind him of his mother and Auguste, the apex of their shared looks. He breathes out through his nose; he feels a little out of control again, but it’s nothing like before, when he was eighteen, or before that, when he was fourteen. This feeling is lighter, somehow, like he’s been precariously buoyed up on a warm wind and his feet are inches above the ground. He could never control his own heart, his mother had softly said to him, but he didn’t have to let it be a weakness. 

As he pads in his socks down the original hardwood floor of the hallway, internally complimenting Nikandros on his renovation skills, he hears Damen speaking with someone in hushed tones, through a slightly open bedroom door. Laurent knows he really shouldn’t eavesdrop, that nothing good ever comes from it, but he slows enough to catch some of the exchange anyways.

“You know you can’t lie to me, Damen. Or at all. I thought you came up here to take a break from all this.” It’s Nikandros, and he sounds exasperated, like he’s had this conversation with Damen before.

“I did, Nik, I promise, but . . .” Damen searches for his words. “He’s just – it’s – nothing’s happened. He’s different.”

Nikandros heaves a sigh, loud enough that Laurent takes a small step back from the door.

“I have the strangest feeling that’s exactly what you said about her, too. And look how that turned out.” Nikandros’ voice is quietly firm, and ultimately protective. This must be about the woman in Ios, Laurent thinks. Nikandros is comparing her to Laurent. “I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”

Does Nikandros believe that Laurent will hurt Damen? Has Laurent been so unsubtle about his own affection? He should really go back to the living room.

“I’m not so fragile, Nik,” and Laurent can practically hear Nikandros rolling his eyes. “I don’t even really know if he likes me back, anyways. Don’t give me that look, I’d survive if we just stayed friends. He’s really not as bad as you think he is.” 

There’s a gentle creak of the floorboards from within the room, and Laurent’s tempted fate enough, so he carefully and quietly returns to the couch in the living room, politely inserting himself on the edge of a conversation between Lazar and Kashel about museum work. 

Laurent hopes that Nikandros doesn’t tell Damen how much his affections are returned. He’d thought he was being careful, and not letting his hopes infect their friendship too much, but it turns out he’s been practically as reckless as ever if Nikandros found him out within minutes of being introduced. If Damen truly likes Laurent as he’s been diligently performing something approaching neurotypical and friendly, then what will he think of Laurent if they ever mutually start something more, and Damen sees how terrible he really is? It could never work, he’ll hurt Damen, just like Nikandros thinks. Laurent should have sabotaged their burgeoning friendship long ago. 

Just as this internal crisis is ramping up for real, Damen returns to the living room, a glass of cheap prosecco clutched in his hand, and a wide smile on his face. His eyes are a little tight though, and he sits somewhat stiffly on the couch next to Laurent. 

“Almost midnight! How you holding up?” Beneath the affect of excitement is a strain of genuine concern, and Laurent is stupid and helpless to it. 

“Good, I’m fine,” he says quietly. He’s a slightly better actor than Damen. “Ready to go to sleep after this, though.”

Damen makes a laugh that turns into a quiet sigh when he runs his hand over his face. “Me too, honestly. Good thing it’s a holiday tomorrow,” and it’s Laurent’s turn to politely laugh and agree. There’s so much tension between them now; Laurent wishes he never stopped to listen to him and Nikandros. 

A countdown from thirty starts soon after, though, and there’s a little mix up at twenty by Makedon and his crew who are much too sloshed to handle numbers, but they get down to ten eventually, and down to five is a breeze, and Laurent looks at Damen at three, who looks back at him at two, and Damen doesn’t even say one as they share their gaze, but they both recover enough to say _Happy New Year!_ and cheer, toasting drinks with everyone else. Laurent leaves not too much later, saying something like _See you at work,_ to Damen at the door, before walking across the street to his car, driving only a couple blocks towards his own part of town before pulling over and parking, and dropping his face into his hands. 

#

Early January only means one thing for Laurent.

There’s a staff meeting that he’s missing, because no one wanted to come in late December for one, so they’re holding it today, the day Laurent had already decided that he would stay home. He’s probably not missing anything important; someone would send him an email if there was. He had also made sure to build up enough extra hours to take this day off, so no one from the provincial government’s going to chase him down and ask if he’s counting this as holiday hours or sick leave ones. It’s probably closer to the latter.

It’s otherwise not a terrible day for Laurent, despite the reason for his day off. His stomach feels better than it usually does when he wakes up, and it’s easy to shower and get dressed. He keeps it comfortable, intending only to make breakfast and tea and settle back under a blanket in bed to eat. The day outside is shivery with frost, and a little overcast, but birds are still chirping and flitting around in his holly tree out back.

He had turned off his phone last night, but it’s still plugged in on his bedside table. It feels a little like overkill now, after eleven years; he never tried to treat it like a sacred day, as if his brother is a martyred saint whose soul must be wholly attended to. At this point, the act of mourning Auguste has been processed so thoroughly that Laurent can think about him any time of the year, his grief is no longer bottled up only to burst when the anniversary arrives. The inactive phone had initially acted as a cushion to the thought of the world’s capacity to move on without Auguste, and by now it’s just tradition. 

Laurent used to use this day to cry, mostly, in the safety of his room. Now he’s twenty-four, and slightly less prone to tears than when he was thirteen, even when it comes to Auguste. The wound is not so fresh. He detaches from the world instead, reading favourite books and eating comforting sentimental foods. His leek tart may not be exactly the same as his mother’s and the mimolette from the store not as flavourful as it was in Arles, but he’s comfortable. That’s what this day has become for Laurent, one that he thinks Auguste would have preferred him to have, in peace and comfort. 

It’s coming up to 1 o’clock, and Laurent has moved with a blanket around his shoulders to the sofa, with a plate of cheese on the table, a bowl of out of season berries that he splurged on at the store, and his old battered copy of _Le Petit Prince_ , when he hears a knock on the front door. He puts his book down slowly, making note of the page number, and hauls himself up with the blanket-shawl and over to the entryway. His door doesn’t have a window in it, so he can’t even guess from the silhouette who it could be. He crosses his fingers that it isn’t someone selling something, and pulls it open.

It’s Damen. Why does he always look like he ran here, Laurent thinks. Damen’s expression is a mixture of worry and confusion.

“Laurent, um,” says Damen eloquently, and his eyes scan Laurent quickly from head to toe, ruffled hair to blanket shawl to fuzzy wool socks. 

Laurent sighs, and his breath fogs in the space between them. “Do you want to come in?”

Laurent’s back in the living room by the time Damen’s done removing his coat and shoes, hovering near the sofa but not sitting on it yet, unsure of how to fit into the space now that Damen is here, unannounced. He supposes that it’s different, this time, than it was before; he’s not losing his mind and he also doesn’t know why Damen’s here.

“Why are you here?” he asks lightly when Damen appears in the doorway. 

Damen still looks uncomfortable. “I guess I just wanted to make sure you were – okay,” he says, a little awkwardly. “You weren’t at the staff meeting, and then you weren’t at lunch, or in your office, and I didn’t – I thought maybe something was wrong?” He peers at Laurent from across the coffee table. “You’re alright, right?”

A calm surety fills Laurent, like he’s back on even ground. He sinks back onto the couch, sitting a little more primly on the seat than he was before. “Yeah, I’m alright, Damen,” he says. He realises it’s the truth.

“Oh, good, that’s good,” Damen stammers, and Laurent surprisingly hasn’t felt more in control of a situation. He smiles, refreshed. 

“You’re on your lunch break, right? Have some cheese,” he says, and gets up again to go to the kitchen. “I’ll make you something to drink.”

He sees Damen sit carefully down in a chair, eyes wide, and lean over to look at the food on the coffee table before Laurent gets to the kitchen. His heart feels so full for some reason, like he knows exactly what to do and he’s not afraid anymore. He flicks on the stove element and puts a saucepan over it, then pours milk in. He feels the way a crocus does, tender in early spring, when the water has melted so gradually and gently into the soil that he knows there will be warming sun above the ground. It’s leagues more comforting than the rest of the self care he’s done today, and all because Damen had been thinking of him, had sought him out out of concern and good will. He stirs honey into the microwave-melted chocolate, and dashes in cinnamon and allspice as well, before pouring it evenly into the hot milk in the saucepan. After a minute of stirring, it seems to come together, just like he remembers. He turns the element off and looks for mugs, then pours a generous helping into each. He carries them carefully back into the living room.

Damen has a piece of chaource held tentatively between his fingers, and he’s chewing on something else when he looks up at Laurent. He sets one of the mugs down in front of Damen and sits on the couch before bringing his own up to his mouth. Damen puts the cheese back down.

“Hot chocolate?” Damen says, and then takes a sip. His eyebrows rocket up. “This is so good, what the fuck,” he says, but he’s forced into another very small sip; it’s still very hot. Laurent smirks behind his mug, internally preening. 

They are content in the silence of hot chocolate and Veretian cheese for a couple minutes. Laurent is pleased to note that he doesn’t feel the usual pressure of filling a space in conversation. Instead, he wants to tell Damen something in this moment, without the burden of feeling like he has to, without trying maintain a seemingly unattainable level of comfort. 

“I took the day off because it’s the eleventh anniversary of my brother’s death,” he says, serenely straightforward. Damen’s face looks like it’s getting worried again, so Laurent goes on.

“It’s fine, though. It’s normal to miss someone and it’s also normal to move on at the same time. I’m okay,” he confirms, and Damen still looks a little struck. Laurent feels a quick flash of regret, like he’s ruined something, before Damen speaks.

“Of course, Laurent. It’s – I’m glad you’re okay.” Damen looks around the coffee table for a moment, still cupping his mug with both hands. “I still miss my mother, sometimes,” he says softly, and looks up into Laurent’s eyes with the hint of a smile. Laurent can’t help but smile back, closed-mouthed and comprehending. He puts his hot chocolate down and gets up, to collect the framed picture from the side table, and kneels next to the low chair Damen is in. He one-handedly holds the photo slightly over Damen’s lap, and one of Damen’s hands comes up to steady it. 

“My mother, Hennike” says Laurent, even though it’s obvious, but he likes saying it. “She died when I was eight.”

Damen spends a long minute taking in the photo. Laurent hadn’t changed the frame from the one it had been in when he took it from Arles, even though a couple years ago it had been cracked in the move to this house. He traces the split in the wood with his thumbnail, and keeps his eyes on his mother’s picture as well; he can’t watch Damen right now.

“She’s beautiful,” Damen murmurs. “Just like you.” 

Laurent nods and hums, and then the words catch up with him, and he’s turning red. It’s suddenly a struggle to keep his head turned toward the picture, but today has primarily been about letting go, so why not? He lets his head turn smoothly to look at Damen, like the orientation is a completely natural one, and Damen’s face is so close, and so, _so_ beautiful, with his deep brown eyes and long, black eyelashes, strong cheeks and ruddy lips.

Laurent can’t help but think: what was it he was afraid of, again? Was it about friendship, and desires, and acting on them? Was it rejection? Was it the relaxation of dependence, the affection or intimacy, the lack of control? Was it living up to expectations?

Their lips meet, a little off-centre at first, but Damen tilts his head a little to the side and gently pushes back, and it’s better, nicer. Laurent hasn’t kissed anyone in a long while, but it seems very easy, with Damen, for them to surely, tenderly, work into a slow rhythm. Damen’s lips are slightly chapped, but Damen licks over them in the small break of a breath, too quick to do anything other than lean right back in. Laurent thinks briefly about tongues, before Damen’s is edging along his lip, and Laurent opens his mouth slightly to meet it with his own. He tastes like chocolate.

Laurent realises the hand not holding on to the picture frame is clutched tight to the arm of the chair, digging into his ribs. He moves his hand blindly, and just as it reaches the crease of Damen’s elbow, their other hands both lower the photo to rest on Damen’s knee. The skin of Damen’s arm is impossibly silky, and he feels up towards his bicep and the large muscle there. Laurent’s mind is like waves of static, and he can only focus on one thing at a time; the breaths on his cheek, his tongue moving over Damen’s teeth, the material of Damen’s shirt now creasing under his grip, a hand moving to clasp Laurent’s forearm.

Laurent shivers unwittingly, and pulls back. He opens his eyes and slips his arm out from under Damen’s gentle grasp, sits back on his heels. His knees hurt, vaguely, but his hand is still on Damen’s arm, his alabaster hand contrasting with the nut brown skin. He looks up, and Damen is eyeing him with a smile big enough to show his dimple, and a passage opens somewhere in Laurent’s chest, and he smiles back, just as big. Damen moves his other hand to cover Laurent’s on his arm, briefly, and then with unplanned synchronicity, they both stand up.

“Laurent,” Damen begins breathily, and then lifts his hand, telegraphing the movement forward to brush the back of his knuckles gently down Laurent’s cheek. Laurent catches his hand as it falls, and opens it so the palm is up. He moves Damen’s fingers one at a time, and then massages firmly with his thumb down the centre of his palm. 

“Laurent,” Damen tries again, a little stronger.

“Damen,” says Laurent, benignly. He’s still looking down at where he’s stroking Damen’s hand with his thumbs. 

“I . . . should go back, probably,” Damen finally manages. Laurent looks up, can feel how pink his face is, and Damen smiles affectionately again. “I left my volunteers there,” he says.

“Ah. Wouldn’t want them delivering badger heads to the wrong people without you,” and Damen scoffs in mock offense, but keeps his hand in Laurent’s. 

They make it slowly to the door, hands still together, like they’re making up for the times when they could’ve been holding each other before. Laurent traces his hand over the wallpaper in the entryway while Damen gets his shoes and coat on, and then they’re in the open doorway, chilly January air spilling into the warmth of the house, but Laurent doesn’t mind right now.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” asks Damen, a little hesitantly, like he’s also trying to get to grips with having to let go of Laurent’s hands right now. 

“Yes,” says Laurent firmly, no room for doubt. He’s sure, and he thinks Damen is, too.

“Right, cool – awesome,” says Damen, smile and dimple gradually creeping back. He squeezes Laurent’s hand before letting go, walking back to his car in Laurent’s driveway. Laurent holds his own hands in front of himself as he watches Damen reverse into the street, and then drive away. He bundles quickly back inside to keep any more warmth from getting out, but after he’s locked the door, all he can do is lean back against it, cupping his own face with his hands, and smiling so hard his eyes squeeze shut and he sees stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr at brigitttt and brigittttoo, and also twitter @BrigitTronrud. Comments are much appreciated, thank you for reading!


	3. Laurus nobilis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end, plus an epilogue. Thank you all for reading (and leaving such nice comments)! Happy holidays and lots of love, B

Nicaise returns to the museum from his finals and holiday break and immediately makes fun of Laurent and Damen. How he gathers his information so efficiently, Laurent doesn’t want to know, and he partially succumbs to it all with a sigh. There’s a little part deep in his chest, nestled suspiciously close to his heart, that is blushing and stuttering and joyous, all because he and Damen are “together” enough for Nicaise to make fun of them as a real unit now, and not just as tense individuals who hover around each other. The surrounding parts are only mildly tolerant.

“I can’t believe you really got Big D’s big D,” says Nicaise with mock pride, before laughing sharply at his own joke. They’re ostensibly taking a break from packing loan material, in Laurent’s office drinking bottled juice from the lobby cafe and illicitly munching on granola snacks. 

“Waiting a while to use that one, have you,” says Laurent, rolling his eyes. He’s hesitant to reveal to Nicaise that he and Damen have barely kissed more since that first one. They’ve been on a couple dates, eased by their working roughly the same hours in the same building; Damen had most notably taken him out to a traditional Akielon-style restaurant after work one evening. To Laurent’s surprise, they had been warmly received (pinched and kissed loudly on the cheek) by one of the very old Akielon grandmothers who owned the place, before being seated by her in what was earnestly pronounced “best seats in whole houses!” in heavily accented Veretian. The food had been amazing, of course, but they usually just stuck to shared lunches in the staff lounge, for the ease of it. 

As for the afterwards of everything, Laurent has been kissed goodnight, on the cheek and forehead more often than on the lips, but he has also held Damen’s shoulders and run his hands hesitantly through the dark curls while standing in the light of his front porch. He’s stroked over Damen’s cheeks and down his neck with both hands when they were sitting on his couch, once, knees touching, Damen’s eyes closed and his head bowed, smiling softly like this is all he’s ever wanted. Sometimes Damen looks at him like he can see some of Laurent’s broken pieces, but isn’t afraid of scratching himself on the shards. Laurent’s heart tightens in his chest every time he catches Damen looking like this, and although he should feel properly cherished, he usually just feels . . . inadequate. 

Laurent had had people before, in the early years of undergrad, in that physical way that his therapist had gently cautioned against but never banned outright. Those cases were entirely unemotional, and purely driven by some sort of desperation in Laurent’s mind to just get over himself and approach normality. These experiences had never worked the way he had wanted them to, and more often than not left him more ashamed of himself than he had been to begin with. Laurent is painfully aware that with Damen, he must make quite sure of his own desires before absolutely anything happens; the emotions involved do not make anything easier, and he would hate himself more than he did when he was fifteen if he let something like that happen with Damen around. On the other hand, Laurent worries that if he doesn’t make an effort to progress in terms of physical intimacy, Damen will get bored, or angry, or impatient, and leave, or worse. Laurent tries to spend as little time possible considering the _worse_.

For now, Damen is sweet and kind, and Laurent lets himself languish in short term plans for once in his life.

“Have you ever been to Ios?” asks Nicaise. He’s reclining in the extra chair in his office, his legs up on the second desk used for storage. He has his hand cupped by his chest, presumably to catch granola snack crumbs, albeit ineffectively. 

Laurent shakes his head. Nicaise hums to concur. Laurent recalls Nicaise talking about living in Arles too as a child, in vague terms, as a throwaway line. It’s not something for him to be nosy about. “Why do you ask?”

“Just thinking about the loan. I had a school trip to Karthas castle once, but everyone’s been there.” Nicaise says this with an air of distaste, as if he could be very cosmopolitan if only he could be bothered. Laurent has likely been on the same trip. 

They lapse back into comfortable silence, Nicaise scrolling on his phone and sipping juice, Laurent checking his work email. It’s a couple minutes later when Laurent admits that he can’t keep staring at the same old messages in his inbox, and he slowly gets up. They drop the snack bag in the trash bin by the door before going back to their set up at the work tables along the windows. He and Nicaise had found a good system the other day, where Nicaise would compile stacks of specimens, bookended by cardboard, and Laurent would tie cotton tape around each bundle and arrange them to his liking in the travel box. 

They’d only gotten through three or so bundles when they heard the door to the collections being unlocked. Nicaise paused with a specimen in his hand and whipped his head around to Laurent.

“Bet you ten bucks it’s your beefy boyo,” he says with a smirk, and Laurent scoffs. He would never take those odds, because he can already hear Damen’s gait down the centre aisle. Damen rounds the corner of a cabinet a little ways down from where they’re working, and smiles congenially. He’s got a thicker grey sweater on today, and black jeans, like he’s come out of a family friendly department store catalogue. He’s got something cupped in his hands in front of him, shielding it from view; it looks like a jar. Laurent puts the cotton tape down on the table.

“Hi Laurent, Nicaise,” he greets. Nicaise gives him a look with too much eyebrow that Laurent pretends not to notice. 

“What did you bring me,” says Nicaise. He has no shame, and Laurent just barely restrains his hand from palming his own face. He steps towards Damen, who uncovers the object in his hand. 

It’s a picked stem and flower, small, bottom end floating in wet dirt in a jam jar, top leaves and drooping white flowers hooked over the side of the opening. “Snowdrops,” Laurent says quietly, and he looks up at Damen’s shy smile. His heart stutters. 

“Yeah, I was hoping you might like them. Maybe you could tell me their scientific name in that hot voice you have when you get all _botany-y_ ,” says Damen, and Laurent takes his elbow as calmly as he can to lead him away from where Nicaise is starting to snicker. They end up back in his office, where no one but Damen can judge him for smiling giddily, like a fool. 

He parks Damen in the middle of the room, and carefully takes the jar from him. Laurent sticks a finger in the dirt to see how wet it is; should be good enough for now. He puts it on his desk, next to his bag. 

“Thanks, Damen,” he says, and Damen didn’t stay put, because now he’s right by Laurent’s side, leaning slightly over his shoulder to look at the flower on the desk. Laurent feels his face quickly reddening. 

“Do I get to hear its name?” Damen’s very close to his ear, and his neck, and Laurent can feel the playfulness in his tone. His heart is leaping in his ribcage, and he has to remind himself that they’re at work, that Nicaise is just behind that wall. 

“ _Galanthus nivalis_ ,” he says, trying not to pay attention to the way he says it, whether his voice is as hot as Damen said it was earlier. He can feel Damen’s grin by his cheek, and then a soft press of lips there, just the same moment as Damen’s hand finds his elbow on his opposite side to steady them. Laurent allows himself a moment of embarrassingly childish pleasure before turning his head slightly to look at Damen out of the corner of his eye. The dimple stares back at him.

“Oh, is this all for the loan stuff?” Damen’s looking past him at all of the spreadsheets and printouts on his desk, at one of the emails he left up on his desktop. 

“Yes. I told you it was big,” Laurent says, and then rolls his eyes when Damen pulls back a bit to waggle an eyebrow at him. Honestly. 

“Nicaise and I were packing it all out there, too,” he says to try to recover, but Damen’s now looking back at his computer more intently. The email that’s up is the most recent one from the Ios curator, about exactly how many boxes they should expect once everything’s packed. Laurent looks back at the furrowed brow on Damen’s face; he’s gone quite tense around Laurent’s back, too.

“Is something wrong?” Laurent touches a light hand to Damen’s chest. The sweater feels a bit scratchy. Damen straightens up, like he’s suddenly remembered where he is, that he’s not acting right. His expression turns achingly sad for a fraction of a second, before he looks a little guilty. Laurent quickly glances back at the desk to see what could be amiss, but takes Damen’s hand as well. This seems to help.

“I’m –” he starts, and then he fully faces Laurent. He takes a big breath before admitting, in a quieter tone, “The curator at Ios. She’s – Jokaste is my ex.”

Laurent can’t help but turn his head to look at his computer again, mouth slightly agape. He doesn’t know how to feel yet about this information, about how Damen said her name, the name he’s been reading signed at the end of each correspondence, the name he’s looked up on the Ios Museum website all those times when he was bored. It feels momentarily difficult to hold together, struggling to equate balances. This is the woman who Damen had been hurt by, back in Ios. Laurent, swept with the current, pieces together the innocuous fact that Jokaste the curator had been loved by Damen the student; a graduate student, a master’s student, but – there’s an uncomfortable thought, there.

What would a good . . . boyfriend? Person? Lover, do? Laurent’s struck, then; they haven’t done this part yet, agreed on a name for this between them. He’d like for it to be the first, if possible, but he doesn’t know if this is the best time to nail down terms. He’s looking back at Damen now, into his eyes, and he hopes that nothing is showing on his face, how unprepared he was for this, for any of this. Damen’s holding his hand tighter than is really comfortable. 

“ _The_ ex,” Laurent says feebly. Damen closes his eyes for a second, and nods. When he opens them again, Laurent is more sure. “That’s fine,” he says, even though he hasn’t spent enough time to determine if it really is. “I’m with you now,” and his voice pitches up a little beyond his control, so it comes out like a question. 

Damen’s grip on his hand loosens into something less painful. “Yeah,” he says, after a moment, and his expression relaxes minutely. He takes another breath, and brings his other hand up to rest gently on Laurent’s shoulder, close to the curve of his neck. “You are.”

Laurent smiles at him, maintaining eye contact as much as they can handle, before Damen breaths out a tiny laugh. “You look like an owl,” he says, and this absurdly makes Laurent want to smile even more, but instead he turns bright red and tries to prissily escape Damen’s hold, which he lets him do. Damen’s smiling now, though, which Laurent is apparently willing to sacrifice a lot for in this moment. 

Damen tangles his fingers with Laurent’s just before they exit the office, which reminds Laurent lamentably of high school couples obnoxiously taking up large portions of a sidewalk, but he lets it happen anyways. Laurent escorts him out via the centre aisle to avoid Nicaise’s sight, but stops Damen just as they’ve got the door open. He looks back at Laurent, unexpecting, and Laurent impulsively gets one hand up on Damen’s cheek before he tilts his head up. Damen catches on quickly and they kiss, chastely, but on the lips, and Laurent likes the feeling of Damen’s jaw under the palm of his hand, how it moves slightly with the kiss. 

#

The one thing about Marlas that Laurent still cannot completely comprehend, even after living so long here, is why there are so many tiny kebab restaurants. Often they’re inexplicably combined with foodstuffs of unrelated cultures; there’s a place a couple blocks away from Laurent’s house that advertises all of seasoned kebabs, spicy lo mein noodles, and refreshing, fruity, frozen yoghurt, and he’s sure that they shouldn’t go together, but no one in this city bats an eye at any of it. 

Damen doesn’t bat an eye either, to Laurent’s quiet exasperation. He’s all too pleased to take Laurent to one for their next date, apparently one that Pallas had recommended. They serve much more complementary dishes here: gyros and souvlaki, and falafel, with fresh baklava on the counter to tempt customers. It’s more casual than the Akielon grandma restaurant, with plastic trays and disposable wrappers and cutlery. 

The burly man behind the counter has an impenetrable Isthiman accent, so Damen handles both their orders. They’re sitting here instead of taking away to eat at one of their places because it’s warm inside, and they’re both in good moods, and neither of them want to walk another step before eating. 

Damen preemptively grabs a couple napkins from the dispenser at the counter and joins Laurent at the table he’s chosen by the window. He slides in across from him, and after placing one of the napkins in front of Laurent, Damen takes his hand, and holds it in his own on top of the table. Laurent brings his other elbow up onto the table to rest his chin on his hand, to hide his embarrassment. 

“Lysias says the baklava is on special today! Apparently it’s his aunt’s secret recipe,” says Damen. Laurent gives him a mildly bewildered look.

“You really don’t help the stereotype that all Akielons know each other,” he says, and Damen just laughs.

“How Veretians ever make friends is a mystery, none of you like talking to anyone.” Damen gives Laurent a softer smile, and then his expression turns curious. “Hey, Arles has a good university, right?”

Laurent isn’t thrown off at the change in topic, but he does feel a sharp slice in his stomach at the unexpected mixture of Arles, all its tangled history and thorned memories, and Damen’s plain sincerity. He thinks for a moment, his finger idly brushing Damen’s palm.

“I think it’s most well known for its business school, but the other departments are fine,” he says. Laurent purses his lips. “The sciences and humanities are alright, I guess, for a big university. Why do you ask?”

“Just been thinking about schools, and wondered why you chose Marlas,” says Damen. He seems like he’s got something else to say, but Laurent lets it go. He tilts his head in his hand and looks out the window. A couple cars pass by under the street lamps. 

The truth is, Laurent hadn’t been thinking much other than getting out of Arles by the time he’d been applying to undergraduate programs. Marlas had seemed like a distant enough place to go, technically in another country, but not so far away that he’d drown in a new culture. There was also the fact that, well. Marlas had been Auguste’s choice too. Feeling the warm, soft hand around his own, Laurent decides to let Damen inside, just a step.

“They had a good ecology program,” he starts, not meeting Damen’s eyes, instead letting his gaze hover somewhere around his chest. “And . . . I wanted to see why Auguste liked it here so much.” He’s afraid to look up but he knows he needs to. Damen’s eyes have gone soft in the corner creases, and his hand squeezes just a fraction. Laurent takes a steady breath through his nose. “He had died before I came, obviously, but – it’s like I wanted to follow him. I don’t know –” and Laurent so badly wants to pull his hand back, to fold into himself, to lock the door again, but part of being in a relationship with someone means doing things like this, staying put. 

“No, yeah, I get it,” says Damen. He’s about to say something more but just then, their orders are called up at the counter. Damen flashes a quick, close-mouthed smile at Laurent before getting up to collect it. Laurent looks out the window again to get a grip on himself. Little raindrops have started flecking on the window pane.

Damen slides the trays with their food onto the table, and Laurent picks up a falafel, grateful for the acceptable means of escape from the heavy conversation. Damen’s using a plastic fork for his lamb kofta, drizzling yoghurt sauce around his plate. Laurent looks at his face while he’s distracted, and sees only eagerness, and beauty, a thriving entity. Damen is always so _alive_ , brimming with strong feelings and passion, and you can’t help but to watch him. An ugly part of him rears its head though, and Laurent can’t help but think, however briefly, about whether this is what Jokaste liked about him, too. He shoves it away and takes another bite of dinner.

When they’re both basically finished their food, and Laurent has told, at Damen’s insistence, the story about his professor accidentally pushing one of his classmates into an algae-filled lake, and after Damen has told his own story about swimming in a leech-filled reservoir while on a field course, they’re holding hands again. Damen’s smiling so besottedly at him, and Laurent doesn’t feel as uncomfortably pinned by the gaze as he thought he might be. There’s a small crash of pans on a metal counter back in the kitchen, and Laurent turns his head on instinct, but then his eyes linger on the display of desserts to the side of the main counter. He looks back at Damen, who has thankfully connected the dots and cheekily grins. 

Damen _ooh_ s and _ahh_ s at the various little baked goods, poking his finger at the glass every so often. Laurent sees the aforementioned secret recipe baklava, and roams his eyes over powdered sugar and crispy phyllo. Damen excitedly lays a hand on Laurent’s shoulder.

“Let’s each get something and then split it! They all look so good,” he says, and Laurent agrees. Lysias is quickly called over. 

Back at their table, they put both Damen’s kataifi and Laurent’s halva in the middle of the table, and taste their way through each of them. The crunch of the shredded phyllo is odd for a dessert, Laurent thinks, but it’s definitely not bad. The halva is a little more subtly sweet, the tahini and vanilla essence both heavy and soft in his mouth. They’re taking small forkfuls of the last of the halva when Damen brings it up again.

“I guess I had just wanted to know earlier, about Arles and Marlas, because – well, I’m not really ready to decide about it yet, but I was looking at that PhD program at Ios again.” Damen blushes a bit, his head down, looking at Laurent through his lashes. Laurent pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth. 

“Okay,” Laurent manages to say around the quickly forming lump in his throat. He wasn’t expecting this, didn’t Damen leave Ios just last year, has Laurent done something to make him want to leave again so soon? He hopes that he masks his rapidly accumulating concern with the painstaking dissection of a piece of halva on the plate with his fork. 

“It’s not a thing right now, though, really,” says Damen, incomprehensibly. Laurent doesn’t catch himself in time from furrowing his brows and glancing at Damen. 

“I mean – I was just looking at the offer again, but I’m still here, like I’m – not explaining myself very well,” Damen laughs, and leans back, leaving his fork on the plate. Laurent props his carefully down too. Why would Damen try to say something like whatever this is after a nice meal, after fun stories and desserts, in a public place. Laurent’s ears start to feel hot and he feels like he’s being observed.

“I’m not leaving anytime soon, Laurent. Don’t worry,” he says. “I just felt so happy again that I – working in the lab is so amazing that I’m actually excited about the possibility of research again. It can get really –” he pauses, mouth twisting. “Really lifeless, and jaded in academia, when you’re doing it just because you feel like you have to. But since coming here, working with new and different things every day, I’m coming up with new projects practically every week!”

Laurent realises that he’s feeling envious, of all things, near the end of Damen’s speech. He doesn’t want to feel like this, though, like Damen’s happiness in his work competes with Laurent’s affection. It’s irrational, and he knows it, but the thought keeps reiterating: Damen will leave when he realizes that Laurent means less to him than his future research career. Laurent knows he shouldn’t be this kind of person, but of course he’s always been this kind of person, so terrible and awful, so selfish and manipulative, so reminiscent of – it’s like he’s becoming his – 

“I guess I just didn’t know how to tell you, until right now,” finishes Damen with a shy smile, like he’s embarrassed. Laurent feels like a corpse, but he knows how to put on this sort of face.

“I’m happy for you,” he tells Damen, who smiles so widely that his dimple appears in full force, and if Laurent were capable of much internally right now, he’d feel slightly bad about it. “Hey,” Laurent says, like some sort of bro. “Can I – are we boyfriends?”

Damen’s expression turns surprised, suddenly. 

“I mean, can I call you my boyfriend?” says Laurent, and he’d be cringing at himself for eternity if he wasn’t absolutely miserable and frozen inside of his heart right now. At the same time, he’s so painfully aware of what he’s doing, but he’s trying desperately not to think about it. Damen seems essentially luminescent, and he’s grinning again, and nodding.

“Yeah, of course, yes,” he’s saying through his smile, like Laurent’s given him another delicious Akielon dessert. Laurent vaguely gauges through instinct that he should smile now too, and this brightens Damen even more. 

“I’m – what brought this on?” Damen says with amazement. Laurent uses his easiest excuse.

“Nicaise was bugging me about it, and I kept thinking,” he lies. Damen laughs quietly like it’s a classic line. 

Through a haze of near-dissociation, Laurent follows Damen to return their trays and leave the restaurant. Laurent’s glad he doesn’t have to drive like this, but he’s somewhat hesitant to get in Damen’s car, to inflict his presence on Damen like a disease. He’s starting to feel rotten already, and slightly nauseous. He gets in anyways, because that’s what’s expected, and the ride is quiet. Stopped at an intersection, Damen reaches over the centre for Laurent’s hand, and he gives it to him on the pretense that all is well, but remains staring out his window. They reach his house in what seems like a couple minutes, but couldn’t logistically have been, and Laurent puts his hand on the door handle. 

“This was such a nice night, Laurent. Thank you,” says Damen, feeding Laurent’s guilt even more. Damen leans over slowly and hopefully, and Laurent might as well dissemble this part too, so he meets Damen halfway with a hard kiss. It’s warmly received, and Damen hums a little into the motion, before Laurent pulls away, pressing his lips together. He probably mumbles out a goodnight before opening the door and walking up to his house, knowing underneath everything that he doesn’t deserve any of this. 

#

Laurent recovers a little after a night’s sleep, and more after a couple days at work. His guilt is also overcome for the most part by Damen’s clear and palpable joy at having a label on their relationship, and technically at Laurent’s request, however contrived at the time. Damen remains constantly within arm’s reach when they’re together now, whether that means brushing shoulders on the walk over to the staff lounge for lunch, or holding Laurent’s hand when they’re alone in his office, or dragging a thumb lightly across Laurent’s brow after saying goodnight. 

Laurent is unused to it, to say the least, but he quietly admits, under the proverbial cover of darkness, that he likes it. He lets it happen but he pushes away any thoughts he may have about why he’s letting it happen, especially since the kebab date debacle. He doesn’t let himself think about giving himself to Damen in exchange for some sort of promise to stay. It’s a terrible exchange, which is why he’s not thinking about it.

He’s also firmly ignoring any personal feelings he has towards Jokaste as he continues finishing his end of the Ios loan process. He and Nicaise have packed more and more specimens, meticulously checking them off their own copy of the inventory list. Anyways, it’s as he said: he’s with Damen now. Damen is with him. Damen probably doesn’t even think about Jokaste anymore. There seems to be a lot of not-thinking happening recently. 

There’s another staff meeting at the beginning of February, and Laurent slogs through it with Damen next to him. There’s been little update on the newly proposed exhibit, to absolutely no one’s surprise. After the meeting, Damen follows him up to the door of the botany collections, and asks if he can invite himself over to Laurent’s place after work. It would be an imposition if Damen wasn’t so irresistibly cute, and if Laurent didn’t also agree that it’s nicer when they can spend time in private without Nikandros looming around to silently judge them. 

For all intents and purposes, they’re watching a movie. He and Damen are sitting very close together on the couch, Laurent’s legs tucked up beside him and Damen’s socked feet propped on the coffee table, with a strategic bowl of microwave popcorn placed between their hips. Laurent isn’t really watching the movie, and he’s pretty sure Damen’s very pretty yet very simple brain cells are also more focused on the way their shoulders are slouched together than what’s going on with the plot. Laurent is hyper aware of every other inhale Damen takes, along with the flutter of his long, dark eyelashes. The lights are dimmed, so hopefully he won’t notice how much Laurent is staring. 

It’s a couple more minutes before Damen pulls his eyes away from the TV, and Laurent lets him catch him staring, because . . . well, they’re boyfriends now, right? Damen smirks at whatever attempt at a neutral face Laurent is making, and ducks his head. Laurent tilts his head up in kind, expecting a peck on the cheek, or maybe a real kiss, but his eyes open wide in the darkened room when Damen’s hair brushes his chin and he feels lips on his neck. He stifles a small nothing-sound in his throat, and now Damen’s laying a smattering of soft, tiny kisses in a small radius on the side of his neck. This is possibly the best feeling Laurent’s ever experienced.

Laurent shifts his torso so that, while their shoulders are no longer touching, he can tilt his head back further to expose more of his neck. Damen hums, pleased, vibrating through Laurent’s skin where his lips are still touching, barely lifting off his neck to move around. Laurent closes his eyes, and feels Damen’s mouth open up more; the occasional dense press of teeth and wet lick of tongue keep him from fully melting from the sensation, keeps Laurent better grounded and aware. Damen has propped an arm on the couch to get leverage, and holds Laurent’s bicep with the other hand, a gentle but solid grip, almost massaging. 

Any thoughts outside of this immediate sphere of touch and breath are long forgotten. The movie wasn’t that compelling anyway. Laurent vaguely wonders if he should put his own hands somewhere other than his lap, but the popcorn bowl, initially a comfort and a safety, is now just an obstacle. It’s wedged between the back crease of the couch cushions and Laurent’s knee, which he’d mindlessly brought up further to try to get closer to Damen, and he’s not about to stop in the middle of any of this. Laurent settles for putting one hand on the bowl, because his shoulder is still impeded by his leaning into the couch anyways, and shifting his other hand slightly forward to Damen’s leg.

It’s about the same time as Damen’s mouth reaches the hinge of Laurent’s jaw, just under his ear, that the hand on Laurent’s bicep shifts inwards, palm pressing on his pectoral. Laurent freezes for a second, and then grimaces a little at his own tense nerves. Damen stops mid-kiss to pull back, and Laurent opens his eyes and peers down. Damen looks just as flushed as Laurent feels, his lips red from friction, but his eyes are worried.

“It’s fine,” Laurent whispers helplessly, hoping that Damen will forget this slip up and keep going, but of course Damen’s too chivalrous to do such a thing. He moves his hand back to the outside of Laurent’s upper arm, and pulls back even more to look more squarely at Laurent.

“You sure?” Damen’s voice is lowered too, and wow, Laurent never knew how more attractive someone’s voice could become. He’s about to answer in a stronger affirmative when his phone rings.

They both jump a little at it, and Damen breathes out a laugh. Laurent turns to the side table at his end of the couch, carefully not thinking about how he had to remove his hand from the top of Damen’s thigh to do so, and picks up his phone. The caller ID says “Nicaise”, with a picture of Nicaise’s cat above the name. Laurent answers the call without hesitation.

“–ent, Laurent, Laurent, Laurent, Lau–” He has to pull his phone away from his ear with a wince at the volume.

“Nicaise? What’s going on?”

“Laurent,” says Nicaise in a drawl, and then there’s a loud peal of laughter. Laurent turns slightly to look back at Damen, who’s watching him with a curious expression.

“Yes, it’s me,” he says, repressing a sigh. “Why are you calling?”

“Laurent, can you pretty pretty please come get me? Please with sugar,” says Nicaise, before saying _sugar daddy_ in a ridiculous voice and laughing again. Someone in the background of the call says _oh my god, actually?_ and starts giggling. Laurent scrunches his mouth.

“Can you give me an address?” There’s no question that he’s going to get Nicaise from wherever he is, especially knowing that under normal circumstances, Nicaise would rather dramatically feign death and leave the country before asking for help. 

Laurent manages to extract an intersection and building description from Nicaise before he dares a glance at Damen. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to see; disappointment at the interruption of their activity, or irritation at the boy distracting them. But it didn’t seem like he was annoyed at Laurent freezing even before the call, and his face only shows concerned determination.

“Okay, be there soon,” he says to Nicaise, who babbles a bit more before hanging up. Laurent lowers his phone to his lap. Damen had stopped the movie while he was on the phone.

“Nicaise is drunk at a party and I’m going to pick him up,” Laurent announces. Damen’s hands are in relaxed fists on his thighs, and he darts his eyes away and back quickly before giving Laurent a shy look.

“Can I – do you want me to come with you?” he asks. 

“Oh,” says Laurent. He had somehow expected Damen to excuse himself and leave with maybe a promise to see him tomorrow, but naturally he’s defied nearly every other of Laurent’s expectations, so he might as well with this one. “Sure – if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, of course,” says Damen, like he’s already putting on a suit of armour for the rescue. Laurent keeps himself from smiling all the way out the door and into the car.

They follow Damen’s phone’s directions to the apartment building Nicaise had described, and park on the street in front. The building door is being held open by a brick wedged in at the bottom, and they step through, and up the stairs, following the faint noises of the party somewhere above them.

After accidentally going one floor too high, they reach the front door of the apartment, right off the stairwell. Laurent eyes the door critically.

“I’ve never picked a real lock before,” he says, and he hears Damen snort. Laurent turns to face him with an appraising eye.

“Laurent,” Damen starts, with a sparkle of unvoiced laughter in his eye and at the corner of his mouth. He lifts a hand.

“Damen,” commands Laurent. “Use your significant heft to break it open.”

Damen just laughs out loud this time, and moves forward, past Laurent to the door. He turns the knob and it opens easily onto the dimly but colourfully lit room inside, bouncing with bass beats and moving bodies.

“No self-respecting college student would lock their door to a good house party,” he says, and Laurent scowls at him with as much affront as possible as they make their way inside. 

It’s very similar to the couple parties Laurent had been to at the beginning of his undergrad, but he had mostly avoided them during school. There are lots of people, wearing a variety of outfits, from scandalously short skirts and tops, to dress shirts, loose ties and chinos, to just the bottom half of a tiger onesie. The smell of alcohol is strong in the air, and a breeze from somewhere outside brings wafts of weed and cigarette smoke occasionally through the apartment. Damen follows behind as Laurent searches the living room first, scanning the people around the beer pong table, then turning down the narrow hallway to search the rest of the rooms. A group of people pass between them, and Laurent reaches back a hand that thankfully Damen immediately clasps.

There’s a closet door, and then probably a bathroom door, that seems to be locked. There’s a bedroom transformed into a main dance room, with LEDs flashing on the ceiling and people hopping and swaying, cups in hand. Damen opens another bedroom door and quickly closes it with a sharp shake of his head. Laurent decides to look around the better lit kitchen first because it’s easier, and he peers out the screen door at the back stairs to see if Nicaise is out there, however unlikely it might be. They double back to check the last bedroom door.

This bedroom is lit with cheap fairy lights, and there’s a group of people sitting on the floor surrounded by boxes of wine and candy wrappers. There’s three people on the bed in the back of the room making out, but Laurent’s already looking at Nicaise, who’s draped over the lap of a guy with long, shiny red hair and wearing a lacy white bralette. Laurent ignores the protests of the rest of the group that ‘this is a private room, get the hell out’, and walks over the trash to kneel down next to Nicaise.

“Hey, Nicaise, let’s go,” he says, emphasising his words with a shake of Nicaise’s shoulder. Nicaise blearily lifts a hand and turns his head, eyes unfocused.

“What do you think you’re doing? He’s fine where he is,” says the redhead, laying a protective hand on Nicaise’s hair. 

“Mmm, Laurent?” Nicaise reaches a limp hand out and Laurent grabs it. Laurent can admit he’s a little out of his element, so he looks back over his shoulder at Damen, who’s standing imposingly in the doorway. Damen looks cautiously down at the lack of a clear pathway on the floor. Laurent turns back to the redhead. 

“He called me earlier, and asked me to come get him. So I’m taking him home,” Laurent says, with as much authority as he can muster. He’s twenty-four, he should be able to handle intoxicated eighteen-year-olds on his own. The redhead stares blankly for a second, like he’s wading through his own fuzzy memory piece by piece. Then he smiles wickedly.

“Ohhh,” he says in recognition. “The sugar daddy!” Laurent hears Damen bark out a laugh behind him but he settles his glare on the redhead instead. There’s a loud moan from the bed behind them, and the noise rouses Nicaise a bit more. He tries to sit up, hand still in Laurent’s, torso swaying and head heavily unbalanced. The redhead moves his arm around Nicaise’s shoulders. 

“I _guess_ I can let you have him,” says the redhead coquettishly. Laurent doesn’t bother to roll his eyes, and inches forward to help Nicaise to his feet. They manage to stagger their way over to Damen, who helps tremendously by taking most of Nicaise’s weight.

Once they reach the stairwell, Damen thankfully makes the executive decision to pick Nicaise up and bodily carry him down, arms draped over Damen’s shoulders and legs dangling around his waist, chest to chest, Damen’s arm firmly wrapped around the boy. Laurent feels an immature twinge of envy in his stomach but pushes it down. They make their way back out of the building and to Laurent’s car without any obstacles, and then Damen props Nicaise up in the passenger seat, clicking the seatbelt around him before crawling into the back seat. Laurent would feel bad for his cramped legs if Nicaise didn’t look like such a zombie. 

“Thanks,” he says to Damen, before securing his own seatbelt. Their eyes meet in the rearview mirror; he can see Damen smile. 

Unfortunately, Nicaise regains enough cognizance to form sentences only a couple minutes into the ride to his apartment. 

“Laurent, why did you take me from the party,” Nicaise moans, hands rubbing over his eyes. “I was having so much fun, Ancel is so nice . . .”

“Nicaise,” Laurent starts, with an ounce of irritation. 

“You were basically asleep, dude. And you called us,” pipes up Damen from the back. Nicaise gasps.

“Who’s calling me dude,” he mumbles, trying to wrangle the seatbelt so he can look into the backseat. His eyes catch on Damen for the first time, as if he hadn’t been carried all the way down stairs by him. 

“Oh, it’s big boy! You can call me dude any way you like,” says Nicaise with drunk flirtation, and now Laurent does roll his eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh as he makes a left turn. Damen just laughs harmlessly. 

“You guys being together is so – fucking – wholesome,” says Nicaise. “It’s so gross,” he appends. Laurent keeps his eyes on the road.

“Thanks, Nicaise,” Damen says brightly. Nicaise huffs and turns to Laurent in his seat. 

“Have you really not fucked yet? It’s all I’d be able to think about if I saw those thighs,” whines Nicaise, slurring somewhat. Laurent can feel himself turning red. Staying silent only turns out to be a confirmation for Nicaise.

“Wow, you really haven’t,” he says, and turns back to Damen, reaching a carefree hand out to the backseat. Damen, like a cavalier knight, meets it with the flat of his palm. Laurent doesn’t dare look at his face in the mirror.

“The trauma can be hard, I guess,” sighs Nicaise, his cheek smushing into the corner of the passenger seat. Laurent quickly glances in the mirror and changes lanes. They’re almost at Nicaise’s apartment. Damen has a benevolently sympathetic smile on his face, hand still pressed flat against Nicaise’s in the air between them. 

“You’re good for him, though,” and Nicaise lets out a deep breath through his mouth. “He’s still a bitch, but like, in a good way.” Damen lets out a quiet laugh, and Nicaise continues in a stage whisper. “He’ll probably let you touch him there soon one way or another,” and it takes an enormous amount of effort for Laurent not to do something stupid while driving. His abrupt turn up to the curb is enough to swing Nicaise back properly into the seat with a giggle. Laurent parks, turns off the car and gets out quickly.

The cold night air is good, and refreshing, and he takes a second to close his eyes and fill his lungs. He can at least try to compartmentalize this now while they get Nicaise up to his floor. 

Damen carries Nicaise again at the boy’s insistence, bridal carry this time. Nicaise governs from Damen’s arms, and directs them into his apartment (what is it with kids these days not locking their doors?) and further to his room. Laurent goes to the kitchen to get water and painkillers while Damen gets Nicaise into his bed. When he comes back to the room, Laurent hears Nicaise whispering something to Damen again, but quickly turning to grin and wave at Laurent when he sees him put the water and pills down on the bedside table. 

They finally get back out onto the street and into Laurent’s car, Damen back in the passenger seat. He’s unbelievably exhausted now; it’s later than they usually stay out together. Damen was quiet all the way down the stairs, and Laurent feels anxious, like he’s done something wrong but can’t figure out what. He lays his wrists on the top of the steering wheel. 

“I’ll take you back to Nikandros’,” he ventures, and Damen hums in the affirmative, before resting what he can fit of his elbow on the ridge where the car door and window meet, and leaning his head against his hand. It angles his head so that he’s facing slightly towards Laurent, but he’s driving again now, so he has an excuse not to meet Damen’s eyes. 

“Sorry,” Laurent says, five minutes later. He’s not sure what he’s apologizing for, but he feels like he needs to say it. Maybe it’s for stopping their date to help Nicaise, maybe it’s for all the things Nicaise ended up saying that were true.

“It’s alright,” says Damen, with no small amount of warm feeling in his voice. Laurent tenses his jaw. He feels like crying, suddenly, but he knows it’s just the late hour, and the toll of holding all his emotions at bay. He can’t stop thinking about everything Nicaise had managed to insinuate to Damen in the car ride, and what he might’ve said to him when they were alone in Nicaise’s room. 

“Is it?” Laurent doesn’t know why he’s pushing it. It’s late and he just wants to crawl into bed and he doesn’t actually want to have the whole conversation about this right now. 

“Laurent, I promise,” says Damen. He takes his arm down from the window so he can lean towards Laurent. “Everything’s alright.”

It’s like they’re speaking in code and Laurent only has half the cipher. He doesn’t _feel_ alright, but he can’t bring himself to lay all of his infinitesimal worries on Damen, because that seems unfair. That isn’t what a boyfriend would want. A boyfriend would want to kiss and touch his chest, uninterrupted by PTSD and eighteen-year-old volunteers. A boyfriend would want to have sex and go out for normal dates and be loved back properly, without all these insecurities and problems. 

Laurent stops for a red light and takes his hands down from the wheel. He can feel the tears welling up from deep in his chest and right behind his eyes. He turns his head to look out the window and avoid Damen’s gaze. He _can’t_ cry in front of him. He gets his hands back on the wheel before the light turns green but it’s like he can’t control it, his chest constricts and the first few tears start rolling down his cheeks. He knows Damen’s looking at him, which makes it worse, but he gets to Nikandros’ house quickly and without much impairment. 

Damen unbuckles his seatbelt but doesn’t move to get out of the car. Laurent props his elbows on the steering wheel and puts his face in his hands, but leaving his mouth free to take shuddering breaths.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I’m just tired.” It’s not a lie.

Damen stays quiet enough that Laurent eventually peeks one eye through his fingers at him. Damen reaches forward to put a hand on Laurent’s shoulder, and then smooth it down his back, and back up. It feels nice. He sniffs and wipes his hands under his eyes so he’s not completely gross, and leans over the glove compartment and into Damen’s embrace. He strokes down his back a couple more times, before placing a kiss at the crown of Laurent’s head. Laurent leans back into his seat and wipes his fingers under his eye again. 

“You know,” says Damen carefully, “there’s nothing Nicaise could say that would make me like you any less, right?”

Laurent sniffs again. “Really?”

“Well,” Damen says, and Laurent’s heart drops a little. “Maybe not if he calls you a sugar daddy again,” and Laurent can’t help but laugh wetly at that, along with Damen. Why is this man so good?

“It’s impossible to spend sugar money with a bachelor’s degree level of government salary,” Laurent creaks out, and Damen’s laughing harder now, eyes closed and head thrown back. He’s so beautiful, and Laurent’s heart still aches, but he’s feeling marginally better now. 

“Goodnight, Laurent,” says Damen after another stroke of his back, getting out of the car. “Sweet dreams.”

“Goodnight,” says Laurent. He hopes he dreams about Damen.

#

Laurent gets an email from Jokaste a couple weeks later. It’s not too unexpected, they’re just about ready to send off the packed specimens and it won’t take long for them to get to Ios. The only thing they’re waiting on is for the current special exhibit to finish and get taken down; either Laurent’s boxes will sit and wait in Marlas or they’ll get sent and sit and wait in Ios. There’s only the minimum of correspondence necessary for this kind of coordination of events. The contents of the email, however, are much more surprising.

Essentially, Laurent has been invited by Jokaste, on behalf of the Royal Museum of Ios, to accompany his own loan and spend a couple months there during the summer as an official visiting associate. He’s not entirely sure what the title means, or what the work would entail, but it sounds simultaneously intimidating and impelling. His first thought, about anything related to Ios these days, is to tell Damen, but he’s brought up short by it. How would Damen react if he heard that Laurent would be going down to his hometown to carouse with the ex-girlfriend he’s still emotionally vulnerable to? There’s some leeway in response deadline; Laurent will have to dedicate some thought to this. 

In the meantime, Laurent has something of a much less occupational nature to deal with. 

Apparently, through some labyrinthine means that Laurent will never bother to ask about, Damen has managed to book a weekend stay for them at a cabin in the Delphan prairies. It had something to do with Nikandros’ connections, so Laurent hadn't argued when Damen announced, and then gently persuaded Laurent that they were going on a vacation together. They could both spare the hours and use the relaxation, with the workload they’d both had recently, and the weekend had been too far away to worry about it. 

Now that they’re well on their way into the two hour drive inland, Laurent has begun to worry about it. Damen’s driving this time, humming a tune to himself while looking out the windshield. While the scenery had been calming to begin with, light farmland giving way to vast stretches of long grass fields and rolling hills, Laurent wishes he had some better way to distract himself. He can’t stop thinking about what will happen once they get there. He’d packed just enough casual clothing for the couple days they’re here, and agreeable shoes for walks in this terrain; Damen had already put his own bag and a food cooler in the trunk when he picked Laurent up. He’s more worried about other logistical things, like beds and showers, and also condoms or lube, which he hadn’t packed, but might have been expected to for this trip. It might be the expectations that are affecting him worse than anything else.

These unbidden thoughts keep swirling in his brain until Damen turns along a wide dirt path, over a cattle guard, and up to the lot outside of a ranch. When he gets out of the car, Laurent can see the individual cabins dotted around the large property in the distance, following along the level slope of a gradual decline. He gets his own bag from the trunk.

Key freshly collected from the front desk of the main ranch house, Laurent and Damen trek slowly over to their assigned cabin, Damen gesturing with his chin at the edge of the national park in the distance, and Laurent getting distracted by early wildflowers. Damen’s got his bag slung over his shoulder and the cooler in both arms, so Laurent unlocks and opens the cabin for them. It’s more spacious than it looks, but predictably rustic, with smooth natural wood walls, a kitchenette with a gas stove, and antlers mounted above on rafters. While Damen plunks the cooler down in the kitchen, Laurent finds the bedroom through an open archway; the bed is substantial, and covered in downy pillows and handmade quilts. He feels slightly bad for laughing at Nikandros and Damen for camping in November, when he’s not much better for being willing to vacation in a semi-insulated cabin in February, but Nikandros isn’t here to call him out on it, and Damen is too sweet to do it in his absence.

“Everything up to your standards?” says Damen as he comes around the corner. He sets his bag down on the floor by the wall. Laurent is struck suddenly by Damen’s presence next to the bed, and realises that they’ve never been alone in a bedroom before. They’ve seen each other at work, and sat in the living rooms and kitchens in each other’s homes, but there’s something about this piece of furniture that takes a new step. Laurent hums neutrally, momentarily unable to find words. Damen notices.

“You okay? You’ve been more quiet than usual,” he says, and steps towards Laurent, a hand brought up to waist height, making to hold Laurent’s elbow or something. He intercepts it with his own hand, and tugs Damen out of the room instead of answering, leading him to more familiar territory, on the creaky wood-backed couch opposite the kitchen. The cooler on the table catches his eye.

 

“What’s for dinner?” Laurent hopes it isn’t too obvious that he’s avoiding Damen’s question. 

“I was thinking chili? Blanch some broccoli too. And parmesan toast if we can figure out a broiler,” says Damen happily. He throws an arm around the back of the couch, angling his body towards Laurent’s. “We got a little time to kill before then, though. We made good time on the highway,” he says, and Laurent automatically tries to analyse his phrasing to find a hidden meaning. In the face of this bed-related anxiety he’s reverting back to his old ways of dissecting sentences to find what people are truly saying, forgetting momentarily that this is not how Damen functions. Laurent surreptitiously steadies his breath.

“Let’s go back outside,” he suggests. He frowns when Damen heads back into the bedroom but comprehends when he comes back out with a thick blanket for them to sit with. They leave the cabin, settling on the grass just outside. Damen sits first, with one side of the blanket around his shoulders and tucked under his butt, and holds his arm out with the other side, like a bat wing for Laurent to sit under, wrapping it around them more snugly once he’s there. For some reason it’s easier to sit so close to Damen when it’s like this; even though they’re nestled more tightly together than they were on the couch, the air around them doesn’t feel filled as much. There’s a light but cold breeze, which rustles the grass around them, and down the slight hill towards the national park, Laurent can see the grass make waves under the wind, bowing down and springing up so fluidly. It’s captivating in the steadily darkening dusk, the dull brown grass made gold in the fading light. 

“Do you know about Akielon lions?” Damen whispers after a while. Laurent shakes his head; he’s heard of them before, as symbols of Akielos and in general terms of ancient fauna, but Damen will probably teach him something new.

“They went extinct around two thousand years ago,” he says, voice still quiet. “They used to range mostly in Delpha, and bits of Patras, and down to Mellos and Thrace, but they’re talked about now like they had their own capital in Ios, too.” Laurent huffs. 

“Weren’t they just overhunted?” he asks. Damen’s hand squeezes on his shoulder, and he shifts in place beside Laurent.

“They were. I never understood that – how a whole civilization could be so thoroughly enamoured with an animal that they end up destroying it. What’s left to symbolize? They were supposed to represent huge power and wealth and defense, and all we did was try to prove the opposite, in the name of respect and honour.” Damen scoffs under his breath. He seems overcome, like he doesn’t know how to say more. Laurent turns his head to look at him out of the corner of his eye. 

It’s getting to be just dark enough that it’s difficult for Laurent to make out the exact expression on Damen’s face, but, in profile, he still seems as strong and passionate as ever. He’s looking out at the horizon now, and Laurent is pulled forward by the wind, and the sound of the grass, and Damen’s soft, slightly stubbly cheek. He kisses him there, very softly, as one would a child just put to bed. Damen closes his eyes and leans into it.

“Let’s go make food,” says Laurent.

The chili is made without a hitch, full of ground lamb and spices, chopped peppers, tomatoes, beans, corn and mushrooms. Laurent blanches the broccoli, and they forego toasts in favour of just sprinkling the cheese on top. It’s remarkably cosy, and makes Laurent forget to be worried for a moment. He decides to be brave as they get ready for bed, to take careful note of how he’s feeling, and resolves to talk if anything goes wrong. He can be mature about this, he steadfastly reminds himself. He can communicate in a way his therapist would have been proud of. He steels himself before coming out of the washroom in his pyjamas.

Damen’s just wearing boxers and an old t-shirt, as if he never feels the cold. Laurent’s envious, and climbs into the bed with the sole aim of getting warm and falling asleep. He can handle this. Damen smiles at him from the side of the bed, before turning out the lamp and getting under the covers. Laurent tries not to tense up.

A hand slides across the meridian of the bed and brushes Laurent’s upper arm. 

“Damen,” Laurent says instantly. It comes out louder than he intended. He can feel Damen turn onto his side, and Laurent remains on his back to look at him. It's still too dark to see anything, but Damen’s hand is smoothing lightly back and forth over Laurent’s bicep, and this is already too much. Laurent berates himself internally for a second before trapping Damen’s hand under his own.

“I can't,” he says, thankfully at a quieter volume. He feels like he's being helpless and annoying, but he doesn't know how to tell Damen that he doesn't want anything tonight, without first admitting to presuming that Damen was trying for something, and offending Damen if he's wrong. Something starts to tighten in his chest and it radiates out so that he's subconsciously squeezing Damen’s hand. So much for deciding to communicate.

“Okay,” says Damen. Laurent listens intently for the irritation, the disappointment in his voice, but his body still doesn't let him relax when he can't find it. He wants this, he wants to respond normally and lovingly, he wants to let Damen touch him anywhere but he’s been on edge all day with anticipation, and hasn’t properly mentally prepared himself. Damen settles more comfortably on his side, and his already gentle grip on Laurent’s arm loosens even more, so that his hand is just laying there, resting on top, relaxed and still underneath Laurent’s hand. Laurent presses his lips together and forces himself not to apologise.

Minutes later, he hears Damen’s breathing even out. He can feel Damen’s fingers on his arm twitch in his sleep, and Laurent tries to narrow his mind down to focus just on Damen’s breath.

#

Laurent wakes up the next morning feeling less than rested, but back to his normal baseline of anxiety. They both shifted during the night on the bed, and Laurent’s back is to Damen’s chest, but Damen’s hand is still in between them, smushed up uncomfortably against Laurent’s shoulder blade. They’re not touching anywhere else. He can see from the dim light coming in through a crack in the curtain that the clock reads 6:30, or thereabouts. He knows he won’t be able to get back to sleep, but there’s no immediate obligation for him to get out of bed, so he stays in the warmth.

He thinks about the invitation from Ios. With all his worry about how he could get Damen to stay in Marlas, he had never expected this, being asked away by a tempting offer. Laurent’s heart starts to fill with dread at this thought: is he doing the same thing that he was afraid Damen would do, following a career and sacrificing their relationship? Well, it’s not like the Ios thing is a career; it’s a couple months down at their museum, doing who knows what. Damen had been talking about at least four years of research in a distant province. There’s little comparison. 

Damen stirs behind him. The hand involuntarily pushes against Laurent’s back before it starts to pull away. Laurent rolls over.

Damen makes a quiet, sleepy whining sound, and when his hand pulls away from rubbing at his face, he blearily blinks his eyes open. Laurent smiles. Damen looks bedraggled, and the least attractive Laurent has ever seen him, and he loves it. His chest surges at the thought. 

“Good morning,” says Laurent. He delicately brings a hand up to brush away a curl on Damen’s forehead, and taps his finger down the bridge of his nose. Damen grumbles. He reaches over to drape an arm around Laurent’s ribcage, not holding, just resting, and closes his eyes again. Before he can relax too much, Laurent scoots his body up the bed so that he can place a kiss high on Damen’s cheekbone. His shin brushes Damen’s knee under the covers. It’s so much less intimidating than last night, now that Damen is half asleep and Laurent is inflicting teasing wakefulness on him. There’s no expectation to lead anywhere, and Laurent’s confidence increases. 

He trails a finger down from Damen’s temple to underneath his jaw, and wiggles his finger against the stubble, like he’s scratching a cat under its chin. Damen’s brows draw together, scrunching his nose up, but doesn’t move his head away. Laurent relents, but only to bring his finger to Damen’s philtrum and then down onto his upper lip. They both still for a second until Damen, like a playful dog, snaps his mouth at Laurent’s finger, but he’s too quick to get caught, and only brings it back to Damen’s bottom lip when he relaxes again. Damen opens his eyes to narrow slits, and slowly sticks his tongue out, touching it to the pad of Laurent’s finger. When he doesn’t move away, Damen draws the tip of it between his lips, leading with his tongue, and Laurent is so engrossed by the feeling of Damen’s tongue circling around his finger that he forgets to be embarrassed or anxious or any of the feelings he was mired in last night. He looks back up from Damen’s mouth to his eyes, and sees a tired but sultry gaze fixed back at him. Laurent blushes, but experiments with pushing his finger slowly further into Damen’s mouth. Damen teases it with his tongue, and gently sucks, and Laurent is surely as pink as a beetroot by now. Damen only smiles when he pulls his finger back out. 

“Good morning indeed,” says Damen huskily, and Laurent can’t believe he’s attracted to him. He rolls his eyes and sits up to distract from his own traitorous smile, wiping his hand off on the bed sheet. 

They’re up and ready in gradual increments. By the time Laurent is finished showering, Damen is just getting out of bed, and when Laurent is finished getting dressed and is making oatmeal for breakfast, Damen is out of the shower. He walks into the general boundary of the kitchenette with just a towel around his waist, and parades in Laurent’s view with a self-satisfied smirk on his freshly shaven face. Laurent only takes the saucepan off the element and turns to observe Damen’s body with an inscrutably calculating look, lingering in certain areas until Damen gets self-conscious, and blushes down to his chest before retreating hastily to the bedroom. Laurent smiles, and files away the thick muscles of his shoulders, and the gleaming brown skin of his belly for later. 

They’ve planned a day at the national park nearby. It’s nothing like the parks Laurent had been to in Vere in his youth, with exposed bedrock and temperate forests and crashing, frigid waterfalls. Instead, it’s miles upon miles of open and largely undisturbed grassland, with early spring wildflowers and families of deer. Regardless of the major differences, it’s all just as beautiful to him as the nature he had seen back in Vere. He asks Damen if he thinks so too.

“It’s amazing here,” says Damen, with genuine awe. “Ios is all heat and cliffs and ocean, and we don’t have many parks. Too many ancient ruins,” he explains. “It’s so wide and open here, though. Oh, hey,” he says, and points over to one of the little copses of trees just off the designated trail ahead of them. Laurent squints over at it.

There’s a small number of birds perched in the thicket of middle branches beginning to make a racket of alarm, and Laurent doesn’t see what’s unusual about it until Damen bends over his shoulder and points to a spot a little further afield, a larger bird flying around a couple metres above the top of the grass.

“It’s a kite, I think? No, a harrier, it’s making circles,” Damen observes, close to Laurent’s ear. They watch in silence as the harrier glides over the grass. “He’s listening,” says Damen quietly. Laurent sees it make a sudden dip towards the grass and a smaller bird flies up in a panic. The harrier recovers upwards, wings almost constantly outstretched as it manoeuvres quickly around to a different section of grass. 

They come back to the cabin for a late lunch after the walk. Laurent’s in a good mood after the brisk air and the relative calm of the park, and sits at the small table while Damen assembles sandwiches with more ingredients from the cooler. 

“Has anyone told you about the museum air vents?” he asks. Damen looks up with a confused smile.

“No? Why, what’s wrong with them?” Laurent struggles to keep a straight face.

“When they were building the collections tower, the idiot architect in charge of it thought that the exhaust air vents on top of the building weren’t aesthetically pleasing enough,” he says. He lets out a laugh as he thinks about the rest of the story. Damen’s smiling with curiosity now, and pushes a plate towards him.

“So they turned them around, to face inwards, but, in so doing,” and now Laurent’s smile is enormous, “they now expel all of the nasty fumes brought up from your lab, almost directly into the air intake vent.”

“Oh no,” says Damen, realisation dawning. “That means –”

Laurent laughs. “ _Yes_. All those executives on the top floor, who come up with their shitty exhibitions get the very first faint taste of your prep lab perfume,” and Damen’s giggling ridiculously now, on the verge of full-on laughter. Laurent delights at the look on Damen’s face as the man gleefully tries to recall how many greasy seal bones he’s cooked recently. Laurent knows it’s a lot. 

“That’s brilliant,” Damen says. “That’s absolutely wild, oh my god.” 

Laurent is unbelievably pleased with himself for providing such gruesome amusement to someone who cherishes each piece of macabre humour. He’s amazed he ever found someone like this, let someone like this find him, too. He feels a pang of deep affection, tempered only slightly by the thought of Ios and the future. 

The rest of the afternoon is spent back outside, following the edge of the ranch estate fence. It’s neighbour to a couple grazing pastures, smaller, private acreages for summer holidays, kept up by hired farmers during the rest of the year. Laurent gets distracted crouching down to look at couch grass and the dead remains of creeping thistle, and looks up when Damen hollers at him. A ways down the fence, Damen has garnered the attention of some horses on the other side. Laurent walks over.

“So friendly, hello,” Damen coos, getting nibbled by one on the flat of his palm. He strokes down its nose. Laurent reaches over the fence to run a hand down the horse’s neck. They’re grade horses, too mixed a breed to be recognizable, but they’re beautiful nonetheless. He pats it firmly at the base of its chestnut brown neck.

“Have you ridden before?” asks Damen. He’s moved on to the second horse, this one a darker tone of brown with some white on its nose. 

“A lot, when I was younger. I wasn’t allowed when – after Auguste died.” The horse noses up Laurent’s arm in search of treats. “I do still love them, though,” he says, and strokes the horse with both hands now, on either side of its head. Damen is quiet for a bit, in consideration.

“You don’t have to answer this,” Damen says, and Laurent focuses firmly on the horse in front of him, the warm hair under his hands. “But who were you with, after your brother died? It couldn’t be your mum, but you never talk about your dad, so . . .” Damen trails off. Laurent can tell that he’s trying to be polite, but he knows he’s kept a lot of things from him until now. It’s only fair, he thinks, to at least tell him part of this.

“My father was in the same car accident as Auguste,” Laurent starts. “But he survived it. He never really . . . my mother was better at parenting, I think, and so after Auguste, I was mostly left with – left alone,” he says. The horses give up their search of food and start to meander away from them. Laurent reaches for Damen’s hand and they walk back in the direction of their cabin. He keeps his eyes on the horizon.

“He died of lingering medical complications when I went to Marlas,” he says impersonally, almost clinically distant. “But the damage was done.” 

Damen doesn’t pry more, and Laurent doesn’t expect him to. He tries to think about how warm Damen’s hand is, and grounds himself with their steps. He doesn’t think about who he was also left alone with when he was thirteen, at the neglect caused by his father’s prioritization of long hours at work. It’s over, now.

They have reheated chili for dinner, and get ready for bed early afterwards, to sit partially under the bed covers and read books for the rest of the night. Damen seems genuinely intrigued with his book about raven behaviour, but Laurent just can’t seem to settle into his own about magnoliids. He keeps finding himself looking up at the wooden rafters, and listening to the wind gust against the side of the cabin. He tries to assess how he currently feels, but there’s nothing concrete, not even after the discussion of his teenage years, he’s just unusually restless. The atmosphere around them is so impossibly domestic, and the day has been nice, but they leave tomorrow morning, and it’s like he can’t figure out how soon the other shoe will drop. 

He leans half out of bed to put his book on the bedside armchair, and insinuates himself back under the covers, shifting to look to the side at Damen. Laurent tucks his hair behind his ear by habit and reaches out, placing a hand on Damen’s thigh. He doesn’t look up.

“I can turn the light out in a minute,” he says absently instead, turning a page quickly. “Lemme finish this chapter about recruitment real quick.”

Laurent feels faced with a challenge. He smiles, because he knows Damen isn’t looking, and then turns so he’s sitting on his side, sliding the hand on Damen’s thigh upwards to his hip, but not moving too far inwards. He can see Damen glance at him out of the corner of his eye but go back to reading; not good enough. Laurent bends to nose under the sleeve of Damen’s shirt, and kisses his shoulder, then around in a small circle. The position becomes awkward to maintain, though, so Laurent sits even closer, kissing slowly down Damen’s arm.

He can somehow sense that Damen’s not really reading anymore, but he hasn’t put it down yet, so Laurent continues with his game. When he gets to Damen’s hand, he bites down on the meat of his thumb.

“You – !” Damen exclaims, and finally drops the book. Laurent looks up at him innocently. Damen holds Laurent’s shoulder with his unattacked hand and bends down to kiss him. Laurent, pleased with his victory, kisses back with fervour.

Damen ends up hauling him close, a hand on his ribcage and the other delving into his hair, and Laurent sets the pace, but it’s deeper and more impassioned than any time before. It feels really good, and he’s proud of himself for feeling good, and he smiles into the next couple kisses just because he can. Damen pulls back and the hand in his hair travels through to hold the back of his neck. Laurent feels very warm under his gaze. 

“Can we –” and then Damen is wordlessly urging Laurent to lift up onto his knees, to straddle one of Damen’s thighs. It’s a much more intimate position than they’ve been in before, but Laurent still feels good, and being closer to Damen in any way seems like a great idea right now. Their kissing resumes, and Laurent is now able to run his hands over Damen’s chest through the thin material of his sleep shirt. Every so often, Damen’s hand inadvertently tightens on Laurent’s side, most notably when Laurent manages to brush over his nipples with his fingers. Laurent smiles into the kiss again and traces his fingers down to and under the hem of Damen’s shirt, carefully avoiding anything further below. Damen quickly gets the gist and Laurent leans back, to give him space to tug his shirt off.

Laurent marvels at the bare skin revealed, and solidly strokes his palm from Damen’s collar bone down to just above his belly button, and then back up to his breast to brush over Damen’s nipple again. Damen releases a heavy breath and pulls Laurent back up to his lips, his dark eyes burning into Laurent’s before they close.

It’s only a couple moments later that Laurent’s thighs start getting tired from nearly hovering over Damen’s, and it’s through this that he realises, mid-kiss, that his knee is rather close to Damen’s crotch. He’s been avoiding pretty much everything below the waist so far, and Damen’s hands haven’t strayed from around their original positions, but this newfound awareness settles uneasily in Laurent’s mind. He himself is undeniably hard at the moment, and his pyjama pants do little to hide it. Damen’s surely also noticed all this by now, but he’s been letting Laurent set the pace for nearly every moment. The only thing is that even Laurent isn’t sure what he’s comfortable with right now. 

In all his thinking, he’s neglected to keep up very well with his kissing, sort of mouthing against Damen’s lips on autopilot. Before Damen can stop to ask why and set Laurent aflame with embarrassment, Laurent tentatively bites down on Damen’s bottom lip, as if he’s been slacking the pace in order to try something new. Damen lets out a brief exhale through his mouth, and it sounds so absolutely delicious to Laurent that he resumes with a deep, slow kiss, but now that he’s remembered what to do with his face, his thighs give out without permission and he accidentally grinds down on the thick thigh he’s straddling, and it feels so new and good that he very quietly moans into the air between them, catching himself by surprise. His eyes fly open and Damen’s hand slides from his ribcage down to his hip, fingers curling around into the meat of his ass, unintentionally pressing Laurent’s hips further down, and Laurent unthinkingly uses both hands to push hard against Damen’s chest in his scramble to get off of his lap.

He ends up on his butt beside Damen with one leg akimbo over the thigh he was sitting on, one elbow managing to prop him up in time when he fell. It feels too open, though, everything about his body’s state far too conspicuous, so he spins clumsily somehow into a sitting position, determinedly faced away from Damen, whose face must look so attractive and desperate right now but would only feed into Laurent’s guilt. The bed dips behind him.

“Laurent?” he hears.

“Sorry, it was my fault,” Laurent says breathlessly. He knows by now that Damen wouldn’t be mad at anything, but he feels the need to take the blame anyways. 

“No, I should’ve asked, it’s alright,” says Damen, soft and consoling. Laurent doesn’t quite know what he’s talking about. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Of course,” he says, not knowing what’s possessing him to say this. He’s pretty objectively not-okay, even made it resoundingly clear in the way he shoved Damen right after grinding on him, but his mind isn’t actually freaking out as much anymore. It was only in the heat of the moment, with his eyes closed and his senses in a frenzy that he felt the need to abruptly stop proceedings. He pauses, and turns his head shyly back towards Damen.

Damen looks beautiful and aroused, but also fairly worried. Laurent, in a moment of relieving clarity, thinks maybe words would be useful. His body inelegantly reminds him that he’s still half hard, when he moves to hold Damen’s hand, but he ignores it for now. 

“There are things that have – things I’ve been through, in the past, that make this sort of thing –” he searches for any synonym other than _hard_ , “– difficult, for me,” he says. He’s staring at his own knees instead of anything else but Damen brushes his thumb encouragingly over the back of his hand. 

“I guess I’ve been kind of bad at being a boyfriend, you have to wait each time for me to just get over myself,” says Laurent. Damen’s hand squeezes; when he speaks, it’s unstable, but growing in strength.

“Laurent, none of that is true, you’re amazing, and I –” he pauses. “I always feel amazing when I’m with you, no matter what we’re doing.” Laurent’s uneasiness gradually dissipates. “It’s not even approaching a problem when you let me know when you need to take a break, however you tell me. Although, maybe a little gentler next time.” He laughs a little. Laurent blushes. “I want this to be comfortable, and enjoyable, and not ever because you felt like it’s what you were expected to do. As a boyfriend. And I want to be here,” he says, lifting their joined hands briefly, “to help you. However you need.” 

Laurent takes some time to process before he replies. There’s no entirely getting rid of the kernels of doubt seeded deep in the awful part of his brain that will say that Damen’s only saying this to get back in his pants, or that Laurent needs to give him sex to make him stay. On the other hand, they’re so unbelievably converse to pretty much everything Laurent knows about Damen by now. He feels like maybe, for the first time in a while, he’s not so much imprisoned by his traumas as he is by his own ingrained self-preservation. He thinks back to the kiss in his living room that started this, and how letting go of everything, unfreezing the ice into a vibrant river, was the way to heal. How can he cross it if he’s staying still?

“I think,” Laurent says slowly, “I want this, but . . . in a while.” 

“For sure,” says Damen. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“I mean, I think I want it now, too, but – not that far?” Laurent feels stupid, but he knows he’s trying, now, to get out of his stagnant mindset. 

“Okay,” Damen says with quiet earnest. His hand smooths up the hair on Laurent’s forearm. “We can try that.”

They arrange themselves so they’re sitting partially curled up next to each other on the bed, Laurent’s feet tucked under the covers to keep warm. Damen off to the side isn’t much different in comfort than Damen underneath him, but Laurent can appreciate the thought put into the amount of space between them. He feels awkward, but pulls Damen closer, into a series of soft kisses, because he knows he can manage that, at least. Damen settles with the front of his shoulder touching Laurent’s, leaning partially on his elbow to hold himself more or less upright. He pulls back from their kiss before resting a large, steady hand on Laurent’s chest, over his heart.

“Keep your eyes open?” asks Damen. Laurent nods.

Damen kisses daintily down his cheek and into the crease of Laurent’s neck, and he has to bite his lip to keep his eyes open already; the sensation is too relaxing. Damen’s hand rubs gently into his chest, and Laurent lays his own on top, just to feel where they are together.

Eventually, Damen has been teasing around his neck and tracing one of Laurent’s nipples through his shirt so that Laurent is reasonably aroused again. His other hand had found its way to Damen’s hair, and he feels every movement of his head accompanied with the kisses on his neck and collar. Laurent grips lightly onto Damen’s hand, now, and begins a slow drag down from his chest to his belly. It’s nice to be the one to guide them, even if he doesn’t particularly know what he’s doing; if he tugged on Damen’s hair, he’d move to a different spot on his neck, if he pulled Damen’s hand away from his waistband and onto Damen’s own face, he’d let him do it. He’s not as caught up in all of it with open eyes either, despite his arousal. He can note every sensation as it comes, and savour it fully before directing his attention to the next one.

After a century of tectonically slow movement, their hands reach Laurent’s cock through his pyjama pants. It feels almost excruciating, finally having Damen’s warm and heavy hand on top of him, and he fully realises the safety that having his own hand on top, that keeping his eyes open affords him. Laurent shivers a little.

“Laurent,” Damen whispers. His voice makes him want to be swallowed up into the soil under the cabin, tangled with roots and Damen’s body until they decompose into dust.

“Yes,” he breaths out, the word barely there, and Damen takes a little more control, beginning to rub his hand over and squeeze Laurent’s erection, the friction of the cloth between their hands and his skin satisfying in itself, but he wants more. When he takes his hand off of Damen’s, it stills, but Damen’s eyes must be open too, where he’s up under Laurent’s ear looking down his body, and he must be able to see Laurent hook his thumb under his waistband. They come down just enough to reveal himself, and Laurent keeps his eyes open but tilts his head back to stare up at the rafters instead. His and Damen’s hands reach his cock at the same time, Damen’s moving to grip around and stroke at a glacially slow pace, and Laurent’s placed down on top of Damen’s knuckles. He achingly thinks of downy soft feathers in the prep lab, and the exact, delicate touch Damen applies to them. 

Laurent’s breathing hard through his nose after a while, mouth pressed shut to keep any noise at bay. Damen’s kisses on his neck are helping add fuel to the molten urging low in his belly, and he’s close. He manages to whisper something like Damen’s name and drags his gaze down from the rafters to look at Damen in the eyes, when he lifts his head. Damen looks gorgeously mussed, after having Laurent’s hand running through his hair, and his eyes are dark and warm with affection, his lips are red and full from kissing. Laurent’s heart is simmering in his chest, and the pleasure of Damen’s hand on him is all-encompassing. He barely keeps his eyes open when he comes, staring into Damen’s eyes and only just registering his murmured praise through the blinding pleasure. 

Laurent can only breathe and let his weight sink down into the mattress when Damen gets up to retrieve a washcloth. He smiles at Damen when he comes back and cleans up, and Damen returns it with a brilliant, glowing smile of his own. Laurent finally closes his eyes, and drifts off just after Damen lays down next to him, their hands held together between them.

#

Laurent stops by the collections on Monday morning to check on Nicaise before the staff meeting. He’s met with a wicked smirk and a ‘ _how was the sex trip?_ ’ and Laurent avoids eye contact with a furious blush, drops his stuff off in his office, and leaves out the back door. 

He’s not ashamed, and Nicaise is only making fun, but it’s an ineffable feeling that emanates from his chest, at having a good sexual experience for pretty much the first time in his life, and wanting to keep it to himself for a while. He doesn’t quite know how to process it, but he’s not sure it would ever stop lingering, this unnameable emotion embroidered with deep affection and gratitude. He tries not to call it love, in his mind, because if he still had a therapist they would surely frown at jumping to love after sex. But he thinks maybe he’s had budding tendrils of it since . . . he doesn’t know. Sometime before. 

It’s not like Damen had treated him any differently after that night either; they’d driven back to Marlas on Sunday with amiable conversation, refreshingly opposite to the gut-twisting anxiety during the drive out. Damen hadn’t pushed to follow inside either when he’d dropped Laurent off at his house, only kissing him warmly on the lips, and then once on the forehead. Laurent had floated the rest of the way into his kitchen with a precious smile, and then landed back on the ground when he made the mistake of checking his email. He’d been met with enquiries from foreign researchers and pre-staff meeting email chains, and then finally the still unanswered message from the Royal Museum of Ios. He’d quickly closed out of it.

He meets Damen on the ground floor of the collections building to make their way over together to the meeting room. Damen gives him a fond smile, and a brief but amusing retelling of Nikandros’ annoyance with the antics of neighbourhood squirrels over the weekend. Damen laughs at his own story, and Laurent has to bite down on his smile before they walk into the staff meeting.

It starts much like any other meeting they’ve attended. There’s still no news on the new exhibit, but there’s a lengthy discussion of visitor statistics from the last couple months. An archivist talks about her recent dealings with the Marlas city library, and Laurent, as usual, is only half paying attention. After a couple more notes, the Deputy CEO stands up.

“Hello, all, and happy almost-March,” she starts. Damen makes a face when Laurent rolls his eyes at him. “I just wanted to quickly mention before we adjourn, that our very own botany collections manager, Laurent –” and she gestures towards Laurent as he perks up in surprise. Damen shoots him an amused but curious look. “– has been invited to work at the Royal Museum of Ios this summer! Do you know what you’ll be doing there? Here, stand up,” she says, and flaps her hand at him. 

Laurent doesn’t know what’s happening, but he pushes his chair back awkwardly along the carpet to stand. He tries to school his face, rid it of shock before he stammers out a bullshit answer about the loan, throwing in keywords like ‘visiting associate’ and ‘research,’ but he didn’t think this would happen. It makes sense now that Ios would send something to the higher-ups, of course, it’s his _job_ , but he had been trying to avoid everything, and – he wasn’t thinking. Laurent hadn’t even given his answer to Ios yet, whatever it would have been, but it’s probably all made up for him, now. He sits back down after whatever stupid spiel he managed to say, and the Deputy CEO looks so pleased with herself and her little staff ducklings, and Laurent would be quantifying his contempt for her if he wasn’t numb all over. 

He clasps his own hands tightly together under the table and presses his lips together. He can feel Damen leaning over in his chair beside him, but then finally the meeting is dismissed. Laurent snatches his pen and legal pad off the table and rushes out of the room before anything more disastrous can happen in there.

The guilt almost immediately hits him, and Laurent waits anxiously for Damen by the door to the collections building. Laurent sees him approach, his gait relaxed, but his expression tense, and Damen runs a tired hand over his cheek before stopping in front of him. They go through the door in silence, but once it’s closed, Damen slides his hand into Laurent’s, and Laurent lets him. He steeps in the disquiet developing in his stomach for as long as it takes to get them into the office-like space in the anteroom of the prep lab. They separate, hands quietly slipping out of each other’s with a whisper of shifting skin on skin. Damen half-sits on the desk.

“Should I offer my congratulations?” he asks quietly. Laurent sighs.

“I was going to tell you, and I hadn’t even really decided if I was going, yet,” says Laurent. He feels like he’s pleading with Damen, but then his leftover anger at the Deputy CEO resurfaces. “Wasn’t it just last month you said you were thinking about PhD programs again? Why shouldn’t I leave if you’re just going to do the same? Or is it because it’s Ios,” he says.

“Laurent,” says Damen, a little taken aback. Good. “I . . . have I not – why would I leave you?” Laurent huffs. 

“Because –” and Laurent flounders at where in all his insecurities he should start. “Because you have that program waiting for you, because you have a beautiful and accomplished ex-girlfriend back where that program is, because,” and Laurent laughs, desperately, “because we had a – a _sex trip_ and I could barely do anything!” Laurent sags against the filing cabinet next to him. The next words come out helplessly broken. “Because I don’t know how to be honest around you and still feel like you’ll want me.”

Damen looks terribly pained, when Laurent finally drags his eyes to his face. There’s a chill in the room from the mere presence of the walk-in freezer, and Laurent wills himself not to shiver. He can admit to himself that he’s scared, now that he’s bared himself to Damen, that he really will think it’s too much trouble to stay, now. Laurent aches for the bliss he found standing in the freezer doorway, after incredibly easy laughter and wonderment like out of the fairytales he used to read, but then something in him changes. He _doesn’t_ want Damen that way, clouded over and miraculous. Laurent wants him tangibly, and selfishly, and brokenly; he wants Damen after _this_ , right now, after learning about birds and lions and the way Damen makes chili and how he gasps when Laurent bites his lip. After knowing the jubilance which both bursts from laughter and emanates from silent moments; the achingly burdened feeling of Damen talking about his father, mirrored against the awe with which he took in the tapestries, the endless patience he had with Nicaise. Laurent wants this to work, so vehemently, that he almost shakes from the strength of it. It takes nearly the same amount of force to let Damen answer first.

“I’m – I didn’t realize I made you feel that way,” Damen finally says, a little impotently. Laurent sees his grip on the edge of the desk loosen. “I’m sorry I – treated you like that. Like you were just a distraction from Jokaste.” Laurent hopes he doesn’t flinch, he’s too busy hanging onto the end of every word to check himself. Damen continues. “I think I was, uh, running away from things after they couldn’t be fixed, and I guess that’s why you thought I’d do it to you?” He looks up. Laurent nods, frowning. Damen lets out a big sigh. Laurent has to be brave.

“I want this, Damen,” he says, and it’s like mounting his own entire heart on one of his cardboard sheets upstairs. “I want to –” he starts, but Damen’s stood up and closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye. He holds out both his hands, palm up, and Laurent places his own on top. He looks up into Damen’s eyes. 

“I promise I’ll do better,” Damen pledges. “I want this to work, too. So much.”

“I’ll do better, too,” says Laurent. He extracts a hand and places it high on Damen’s cheek, stroking his thumb gently under his eye. Then he gets an idea.

“What if we both go to Ios this summer,” Laurent says abruptly. He could really laugh now, it might just work; if only he’d thought of it before his mind went to pieces. “I could go do whatever it is at the museum, and you could –”

“I could sort out my life, yeah,” says Damen, his face brightening. “Laurent,” he says with an exultant exhale, the dimple emerging. Laurent blushes. There’s a quiet moment, then Laurent lets out a laugh as well.

“We’re both so stupid, for people in science,” he says, and Damen groans and says “We are.” He puts an arm around Laurent and he happily collapses into Damen’s arms, face buried in his chest. 

Later, Laurent walks up the stairs to the botany collections, and lets himself in through the front doors. He takes the first left down the row of cabinets to walk along by the windows; through some of the twisted blinds he can see the bare tips of the ash tree further down, its branches swaying with the wind. Nicaise looks up from the mount he’s making for some kind of small, dried flower. 

“Why does your face look like that,” he says, and Laurent just smiles even more widely. He grabs a chair and rolls it over the last couple steps to Nicaise’s station.

“Let me help with that,” he says, and Nicaise gives him a suspicious look, but acquiesces. He slides the paper over and plucks the specimen from it, and brushing it carefully with glue from the bottle in front of him. On the waiting sheet of card, under the scientific name and catalogue number, Laurent reads, _(Spring starflower), Non-native: naturalized_. He takes the specimen from Nicaise when it’s ready, and presses it gently onto the paper.

##

The betrayal of the broken elevator in Damen’s apartment building would be the last straw if Laurent weren’t already deceased from the climb up the hill from the train station in the awful 5 o’clock sun. He’s wearing the lightest button down anyone could possibly fabricate, but it’s still sticking unbearably close to his skin, especially around the strap of his bag. He’s sure that his corporeal form ascends the stairs while his spectre floats slightly above the rest of him, only reconstituting to unlock and throw himself through the apartment door on the fifth floor.

He doesn’t bother announcing himself or taking off his shoes, instead dragging himself directly to the kitchen to fill up a glass of water from the carafe in the fridge. He downs the whole thing, pours himself another glass, and refills the carafe from the sink before going back to the entryway to take off his bag. He toes off his shoes, too lazy to untie them. 

After a quick glance at the empty living room, the TV on, but muted, Laurent heads down the hall, past the bedroom and bathroom, and into the second-bedroom-cum-office. He finds Damen on the phone, his back to the door, looking out the window with a hand on his hip as he speaks. Laurent quietly backs out to the living room and collapses onto the couch.

From this position, Laurent can see through the balcony doors and out onto the view. Damen clearly had had enough money even as a grad student to afford a place on the upper middle of the hill, facing down towards the ocean; even if this apartment is much smaller than Laurent’s one-storey house in Marlas, its relative cost must be exorbitant. According to Damen, Ios housing prices have only been increasing since, well, forever, and the cost of living in the city has gone up proportionally as well. It’s nigh incomprehensible how the city keeps attracting newcomers and immigrants and students, but its population is a constant, thriving entity. 

Laurent closes his eyes against the bright light through the window. He may not be happy with the heat, but he can admit that the view is rather nice. The older buildings in the centre of the city are still stunningly white, bleached by the sun, and reflect the brightness back out to the ocean, an eternally sparkling mass of vibrant blue. The rest of the city has modernized a bit, with office and apartment buildings, all constructed in concrete and glass up the steep but insistent slope below the magnificent palace at the top of the hill, bordered on one side by frightfully immediate cliffs. He and Damen had taken a tram near the beginning of the summer up to the palace and parliament buildings, to go on cheesy tours and take cheesier pictures together in front what seemed like every piece of carved marble possible. Laurent had sent nearly all of them to Nicaise, who’d responded with multiple variations on “gross” and “my cat’s shit looks better than you two”. Laurent would have to find a way to bring him down here sometime. 

It doesn’t take long for Damen to emerge from the hall. He picks up Laurent’s legs from where they’re stretched along the couch cushions and places them on his lap after he sits, patting Laurent’s calves through the material of trousers.

“How was work?” Damen has faint circles under his eyes, but Laurent knows they’re not as bad as they could be, considering how much Damen’s had to deal with his family and the university. Laurent’s only surprised Damen hasn’t been going prematurely grey this whole time.

“Good. I re-organized all the alcohol specimens today so they fit better with the catalogue, and then I advised on the storage of the oversize collection material,” he says. Laurent lets his head loll sideways against the back of the couch. “Tired.” Damen smiles warmly. It doesn’t catch Laurent off-guard as much as it used to, the pure amount of affection Damen’s able to put into each individual smile he gives him, but his heart still sings at it nonetheless. 

“Do you know what an ‘official visiting associate’ is yet?” This has been a frequent joking question since the beginning of the summer.

“Nope,” says Laurent with a closed smile. Damen laughs. 

Laurent squirms his legs in Damen’s lap until his arms lift off of them. “Too hot,” he whines in protest. Damen accedes, and splays his arms along the arm and back of the couch, closing his eyes and tilting his head back to rest there too. He’s wearing very short shorts and a revealing tank top today, much more climate appropriate garb. Laurent observes the line of his throat and jaw from afar; Damen’s gotten somehow even darker since they came here. In the meantime, Laurent has remained either pink or burnt, oscillating between the two states with surprising regularity. He has no hope for a tan, sadly, and usually sacrifices sweaty clothes for covered skin, but he can well appreciate having Damen smear aloe onto his shoulders and back on relaxed weekend mornings. 

Living together so far has had its ups and downs, but no more than Laurent would have expected, and it’s overall an embarrassingly pleasurable experience. He blushes again at the thought of the way Damen had wrapped his arms around him from behind while Laurent was cooking dinner last night, kissing along the back of his neck and biting at his ears. Progress in that regard has been slow, but seems to always feels right, and good. Laurent still has no idea where Damen’s endless patience comes from, but he’s immeasurably glad for it. 

Laurent waits until Damen opens his eyes and turns his head on the couch before speaking, coolly sipping his water. 

“How was your phone call?” Laurent keeps his tone light. Damen exhales noisily through his nose.

“Fine, I guess. My father’s made things more convoluted than they should have been, but,” and Damen’s gaze transforms into something very affectionate, “we’ll work through it.” Laurent smiles, hiding it behind his water.

“Isthima soon,” he says, instead of further addressing the matter. Damen brings a hand back down to Laurent’s ankle, stroking it. They’ve been planning a trip inside of this trip to spend a week on Isthima, swimming and relaxing and nature-walking, based out of a bed and breakfast that Damen’s family had used to go to when he was a child. Laurent will have to stock up on a lot more sunscreen, but he’s already conceded to buying an ugly wide-brimmed hat and 2-litre water bottle, purely for professional reasons; if he’s to spend extensive time outside studying tropical plants endemic to a southern island he’s going to do it without risking heatstroke and more intense burns. Damen will probably just throw on a baseball cap and a breezy short-sleeved shirt over what he’s currently wearing, and Laurent will despise him for it. And then ogle his legs.

Laurent lifts his own legs from Damen’s lap and puts down his now empty glass to swing around and press himself into Damen’s side, underneath the big arm still on the back of the sofa. He rests his head on Damen’s chest and puts a hand over Damen’s belly, feeling the muscles underneath. 

“I thought it was too hot,” Damen says, but he sounds happy through the amusement. Thankfully, instead of bringing his arm down from the couch back, he just puts his other hand on top of Laurent’s on his stomach. Laurent hums noncommittally. It will become too hot in a minute, but he’s too impatient to wait for the marginally cooler air of the night, and he’d been looking forward to holding Damen all day at work. Stroking his thumb over the material of Damen’s tank top, he muses quietly on how much has changed in under a year; he would never even have imagined following his loan to Ios, let alone making friends with a preparator, and falling slowly in love with him. He’s content, he thinks, and he’s not sure when the last time he actively thought about his happiness was before Damen came along. 

It makes Laurent blush too much to think about, though, so he distracts himself, lifting his head, and putting more weight onto his hand on Damen. He stretches up, and Damen moves his head forward to meet him, but this isn’t what Laurent was going for. He waits until Damen has a curious smile and tilts his head back, before Laurent kisses him right underneath the side of his jaw. The hand on top of his gently tightens its hold, like a vine curling around a trellis. Laurent lets his mind fill with the image of bitter orange trees lining a pergola, the sun streaming through the leaves and settling on the dappled marble walkway, light linen shifting over dark skin. He kisses further up onto Damen’s cheek, and smiles. 

##

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr at brigitttt (personal) and/or brigittttoo (side with writing), and newly on twitter @brigitttt_ . Comments are much appreciated, thank you for reading!


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